Beyond the Fire: DragonRise
by Neutral Ground
Summary: Part two of the Beyond the Fire series. At the age of ten Nicole Shepard was raised to be a killer by Cerberus. Years later she'd managed to move on; but when she dies, they're the ones who bring her back. Can Nicole Shepard be the hero the galaxy needs? Or is she the monster she's afraid she's become? DR will retell and modify the events of ME2, with a femShep/Liara romance.
1. Chapter 1: DragonFall

_Well, here we are. To those of you who've stuck with this story through 31 (!) chapters, thanks for coming back. For those of you who are new to my Beyond the Fire series, you might want to try reading Beyond the Fire before reading DragonRise. While it's not completely necessary to read the first in order to read this story, I have changed a few things from Mass Effect, especially with respect to characterization and a few bits of in-world lore. I've also invented an organization or two. I will try to make sure I briefly summarize any major characters or events, if you don't want to go back and read through the entirety of the first story._

_Also, while I changed a few things in Mass Effect 1/Beyond the Fire 1, as the series gets through the 2__nd__ and 3__rd__ games the changes will become more drastic, to make the story … well, make sense. So if missions are presented out of order or if a character has changed somewhat—don't worry, I haven't just forgotten what's supposed to happen. There's actually a plan, I swear. So hold onto your hats, kids._

_(Oh, one last bit of bookkeeping: as of now the rating on this story is T, but if and when any Mature content crops up, I'll adjust the rating appropriately.)_

_And as always, thank you for reading._

XXX

Sometimes, when they were on a mission, Nicole could hear Liara breathing through the hard suit comms. That wasn't supposed to happen, Nicole knew that. When they had captured her and taken her to Shadowhill, when they had experimented on her as a child … they had changed a lot of things about her. Enough that unsophisticated DNA profiling programs couldn't actually tell that she was the same Nicole Shepard who had been on Mindoir. All her life Nicole had hated what they had done to her.

But there were upsides. Liara's breathing was very soft, very gentle. Unless she'd exerted herself—then she could be as loud as the rest of them. On their last mission, clearing geth in orbit around some lifeless region of space, Nicole had almost focused too hard on Liara's breathing. She'd almost lost her concentration.

Almost. What they had done to her at Shadowhill must have worked. They were in the armoury, now, their hard suits still on. Nicole was staring at the face of her helmet.

"What are you thinking about?"

"The geth." Hydraulic fluid had been sprayed on the front of her helmet, in a slashing, angular line. It almost resembled the scar on her own face, the one that stretched from her left eye to her lower jaw. "About how we're wasting our time."

"I thought you might say that," Liara confessed. Nicole looked at her. She was still mostly the innocent scientist Nicole had met—but nearly two years at Nicole's side had given her confidence she'd never had. And a familiarity with deadly weapons. Nicole wasn't sure what to think about that. "If you started pursuing the Reapers yourself, the Alliance wouldn't let you keep the _Normandy_, would they?"

Nicole snorted. "Not bloody likely."

"Then we'll find our own way." Liara took her hand, and held her gaze.

"Liara, you don't have to—"

"I'm your partner in crime." Liara smiled and leaned forward. "Whether you like it or not."

Nicole couldn't help but smile back. It felt nice to have Liara's hand in hers, even if they were both wearing battle armour.

"Hey, there's this documentary, about asari and humans? Something about convergent evolution. It's supposed to be good, I thought—"

"That sounds lovely." Liara was grinning in a mischievous way that Nicole was starting to get used to. "Would we be watching this before or _after_ we go rogue?"

"Before. Better sound system in my quarters."

"Good point."

_"Commander! Commander, this is Joker!"_

"Go, Joker." Nicole demanded, all emotion drained from her voice like water down a funnel.

_"We've got a huge-ass unidentified vessel showing up on the long range, and it's moving fast, Commander! Towards us! This thing's the size of a skyscraper!"_

"Joker, get the crew into escape pods."

_"What? Just abandon the _Normandy, _are you—"_

"Remind me how big our guns are?" Joker didn't answer. "Send the message. Now."

She didn't listen to the rest of his message, just pulled her helmet on and set the seals. Liara was just standing there.

"Liara, go!"

"I'm not going without you—"

"Oh yes you are! Move it, Liara, into the damn pod! I'll secure the ship and follow, go now!"

Finally, Liara obeyed, sealing her face mask around her mouth. She looked positively livid, but at least she was co-operating. Nicole went through the mess hall and scanned the decks, making sure everyone was on the pods. One by one she watched the personnel on-board count drop … until there were only two left.

_Joker. That idiot._

Just as she was having that thought, the world exploded. Some massive blast tore open a hole in the _Normandy_, completely destabilizing the gravity fields and sending the ship tumbling down towards the planet they were orbiting. Nicole magnetized her boots and started walking up towards the cockpit, her heart racing. If that ship fired another blast, there was nothing she could do. None of her training could stop a giant ship from shooting her to death.

When she got to the command center, the roof was missing. She felt the power of the suction pulling her out, felt her feet pulling away from their magnetic locks. She had to move one step at a time, too aware that moving one foot just a moment too fast would send her tumbling into space. As she walked some fifty feet that felt like a mile, she looked up at the giant hole the ship's blast had left in the _Normandy's _hull. She couldn't see the enemy ship. Only space, its billions of stars watching her.

She ignored that. Focused. Got to the cockpit and grabbed Joker.

"Shepard, let go of me! I can still save her!"

"It's a goddamn hunk of metal, now let go of the controls or I'll break your arms!" Joker glared at her through his own breathing mask, but at least consented to be dragged away from his station.

She pulled Joker through the ship, trying not to move faster, trying not to get ahead of herself. A wrong step now wouldn't just kill her, but Joker too…

She made her way back to the pods. She opened one, and forced Joker inside. As she breathed a sigh of relief, she saw Liara's face, only partially concealed by her breathing mask. She smiled, but Liara couldn't see.

Then the ship was struck again. With nothing but space to buffet the impact, Nicole felt this one in her bones, felt it travel down her spine. On some impulse she jammed the pod door shut, but it was okay, she could get in another one….

And then she realized she was floating in space. She could hear nothing but her own breathing now—the comms must have died. And a hissing noise, somewhere in the back—

She scrambled, grabbing for the hose on her helmet, knowing exactly how quickly the precious oxygen was bleeding out of her suit. She had barely a minute left it she couldn't fix that pump, if she couldn't make it right.

Another blast sent her body tumbling through space, almost gentle. There was nothing to push back on her, and she fell, silhouetted against the moon. The turned to look at the _Normandy_, to watch the pods ejecting. That was good. They would survive.

She looked back to the stars. To the planet below her. She could see the sun, eclipsed by the planet, starting to rise over the edge. A dawn on a dead world. It was beautiful.

There were worse ways to die, she thought. No more pain. No more nightmares. She could sleep … really sleep, like she hadn't in years. Her oxygen was dwindling away, now, and she let go of the pump. She couldn't stop it now. Foolish to try. She knew she should've been cold, but she felt quite warm….

Then she saw Liara's face, somehow real, right there, in front of her. She tried to reach out, to touch her one last time. To feel her skin. But she couldn't. She'd never touch Liara's face again. She'd never find the words to tell her that she loved her. Never finally just be normal, never have a family, never have all those things she cherished in her deepest dreams.

As she died, as her body was encased in ice and her blood welled up in her eyes in the place of tears, she realized that she wanted to live.

XXX

_There is no single greater destructive force than the birth of a new star._

_Before the stars, space was filled with dust. After the stars, nuclear fusion. Energy expelled on a galactic scale. The most significant transaction in the universe, and just as it creates, it summons enough raw power to destroy entire worlds. For each star to be born, countless molecules must be incinerated._

_ Perhaps this is the great irony, the subtext we, as organic creatures, instinctively omit. Creation is necessarily an act of destruction. To create one thing one must sacrifice its component parts. We must not be too eager to create the superior human being. We cannot create the one without destroying the other._

_ For my part I present this research frankly. It is not up to me to decide how it is used. But to the military man who will inevitably read this document, I beg you: think of the stars. Think of the cauldrons of life._

_ And ask yourself if you would ever want to see one up close._

_Forward, _The Decoupling of the Human Genome, _Dr. Ryan Shepard_

XXX

"Where was the body found?" Gabreau demanded. His voice, like his face, was high and pale. He had a white, thin beard, and a look of fatherly impatience about him. Tobias knew that face well. Knew not to trust an inch of it.

"To our great luck, in a miniature moon. A small orbital body. By chance her body collided with it and stuck to the side. She was badly damaged but not as badly as if she had hit the planet." The Illusive Man smoked some kind of cigarette, paying it more attention than anyone else. His eyes glowed softly in the darkness, some strange blue, and his age was so unplaceable that it made Tobias uneasy. His henchman, Kai Leng, loitered behind the Cerberus leader, against the backdrop of an exploding star.

"And space would have preserved her body, after it had got done killing her," Gabreau mused. He leaned forward in his chair, eagerly. "There is research—"

"I'm aware of the research, Doctor. And of your relationship with Shepard. You can't expect her to work with us if you were involved in bringing her back. I know you raised her, made her into what she is. But I also know that even mentioning the word 'Shadowhill' is enough to make her defensive. Let alone telling her the program director was in charge of her resurrection."

"She wouldn't have to know," Gabreau insisted. The Illusive Man surveyed him over his cigarette, saying nothing.

"How long do you think you could keep something like that from her?"

"As long as—"

"I wasn't asking you." The Illusive Man jerked his head. "Tobias. As a professional who's encountered her before. Do you think we could pull the wool over her eyes?"

"I think the question isn't whether it's possible," Tobias replied, his voice a rough, gravelly snarl, but exceedingly polite for all that. "But rather how many people she will slaughter when she discovers the truth. She was only ever an inch from breaking. The psychological impact of her own death…." Tobias shrugged. "Who knows? She might kill us all no matter what we do."

"You're that afraid of her?"

"Not afraid. Aware. They think she's a hero. She's not. She's a monster trying to hide in human skin. When all the cards are on the table, she'll do what we made her to do. Kill. Whatever she can get her hands on."

"You believe that?"

Tobias smiled, an expression as natural on his face as death on a butterfly.

"In the bottom of my heart."

In his chest, the biotic pump was beating, keeping time for him. He had no heart; Gabreau had taken that from him. The exoskeleton along his skin tingled. He could feel action calling. He knew that as with day and night, there were times of peace and war. It was the night he longed for. Like the bat. Like the wolf.

Like the moon.

XXX

_Fourteen months later_

"Good to see you again, Operative Lawson." The Illusive Man, even in a hologram, appeared to possess a preternatural sense of command. He looked like the kind of man who could reach through his hologram and adjust your tie. Not that Miranda wore ties. "Progress?"

"We've had some luck with the cybernetic cells. Of course, as I can't entirely account for where we _got_ them," Miranda started, but a slight hardening in the Illusive Man's eyes told her to drop it. She sighed. "We're proceeding as best we can. Really, it's astonishing how resilient her tissue was. There was absolutely no brain damage—even before we got to it, her skull was about twice as dense as it should've been."

"She's a remarkable woman," The Illusive Man said evenly, drawing on his cigarette. Miranda had never seen him without one.

"I'm not sure if that's the word I'd choose. I've been studying the psychological profile you sent me."

"And?"

"And I have no idea what will happen when we wake her up. If she finds out we're Cerberus before we've had time to explain, she might try to kill us all."

The Illusive Man didn't seem too disturbed by this. He laid his cigarette down, on an ash tray the hologram didn't bother replicating. The cigarette disappeared.

"I doubt 'might' has anything to do with it, Operative. See to it that she wakes up under ideal circumstances."

"I still think—"

"I know what you still think. I'm not going to risk inhibiting her potential. I'd rather have the greatest killer in history than an exceptional slave. That'll be all, Operative. I'll expect full readout reports on my desk."

"Yes, sir."

XXX

_One year, eleven months after the Collector attack_

"And the money goes to my family, right? No matter what."

"No matter what," he whispered. Rain splattered down on the crisscrossing walkways of the Omega station. They were in one of the Deep Districts, a former mining section that had used up all the ore. Now it had become low-rent housing. Cheap, squalid, crowded. It had been a miracle they had found a corner to themselves, nestled between two leaky shacks.

"I just … wake her up early?"

"That's it. And use this hack," he handed something to the man, "To set the security drones to work. They might slow her down. Give you a chance to escape."

"I didn't take you for that kinda guy," Wilson said, his voice shaking. Tobias pulled back his hood, and smiled at the look on Wilson's face.

"My friend, I'm quite afraid you have no idea what kind of guy I am."

XXX

_Two years after the Collector attack_

In her dreams, the sky was burning.

Like great dark hands the Reapers reached down through the sky, burning everything they touched. She ran, as fast as she could, but she was only a child. Her legs were weak. She was so weak. She was clutching someone's hand, but she wasn't sure whose.

She turned back. Her mother cried as a hand closed around her, as fire consumed her corpse. Her brother threw his body in front of a squad of batarians. They gunned him down, set his body aflame. Liara picked her up, carried her, running through the fire…

They were in a jungle. An otherworldly jungle filled with trees from different worlds. She was tall, and strong, and deadly now. Scars down her face and body. Muscles pumping with adrenaline. A weapon in her hand, ready to shoot, to tear, to cut, to claw. To kill. She heard the best rustling behind the tree. She spun forward to attack.

There was nothing there. No monster. Nothing. It was just her, staring back at her, her reflection in a pool. And in horror she raised her left hand, and her weapons fell away, and she watched as claws burst from her fingertips, as a voice screamed through her mind, as she slaughtered a turian prisoner, as she scalped a krogan warlord, as a Reaper's hand closed around her like a fist, as a turian claw ripped open her face, as her brother died, whispering something to her….

_"Shepard! Wake up! Shepard! Wake! Up!"_

Nicole knew she was back to reality before she opened her eyes because of the searing pain in her skull. There were loud noises, something like explosions, and a voice on an intercom, but all she could think about was the pain, like somewhat had lit her entire face on fire. She grabbed her face with one hand, as though she could somehow suppress the pain. Her fingers brushed along her face, along her nose, and her cheeks, and then her eyes flew open.

Her scar was missing.

_"Shepard! There's a weapons locker nearby, with a pistol in it, take it now and proceed through the main exit!"_

Nicole ignored the voice. Any voice she couldn't locate couldn't be trusted. Her breathing was becoming more rapid, panicked, as she searched the rest of her face. The scar above her lip was gone. The recent one, above her left eye, was gone as well. She found herself reaching under her shirt, checking for the three massive scars on her back, and the couple of ones on her stomach. She almost sagged with relief—they were there. When she looked at her left arm—she didn't have sleeves—the dozens of small, criss-crossing scars she'd been ordered to inflict on herself as a child, they were all there too.

But not the ones on the face. Not the one the first turian she had killed had given her, when she'd been thirteen years old. She looked down at herself. She was wearing a white, sleeveless shirt, and matching white pants of some flimsy fabric. Quickly she patted the clothes down, passing her hands over every inch of the unfamiliar clothing. There were no solid objects, but that didn't mean they weren't bugged. She'd need to get rid of them as soon as possible.

As her senses returned to her, so did her training. First she blocked out the pain in her face, forced it to the background. Then she examined her surroundings. She was in a large room, with one exit. She'd been lying on a medical cot. And on one wall, staring her in the eye, was the massive, black-and-yellow Cerberus symbol.

She remembered hearing tapes of a man's voice, telling Dr. Gabreau that once the Alliance stopped funding Shadowhill, that Cerberus would. She remembered a facility where children had been turned into monsters.

The voice was still speaking to her. Nicole ignored it, and walked through the main exit. She was still partially drowsy, her reaction times delayed, but she knew that. Knew it, and could account for it. In the hallway beyond the room, there was a single security mech, walking towards her on uneven, spindly legs. It was holding a pistol at eye-level.

"Warning. Warning. Lethal force deemed Necessary. Warning."

_Someone tripped its last hour protocols_, Nicole found herself thinking. She ducked as the AI shot and rolled forwards, grabbing the mech's metal arm in one hand and grabbing its pistol with her other. She meant to only disable it, but when she pulled back, she wrenched the mech's arm clear out of its socket. It tumbled forward, sparks spluttering and wires trailing out of its empty shoulder. It looked up at her, almost sadly.

She shot it.

"What's happened to me?" Nicole was staring at her own arm. It looked the same—scarred, pale, and muscular. She had always been strong, stronger than almost any human thanks to all the genetic modification that had been done to her, but she'd just ripped a mech's arm off _accidentally_. She clenched her fist, almost expecting to hear a mechanical whirring sound.

"_Shepard."_ For the first time, Nicole paid attention to the voice on the intercom again. It was a woman's voice. "_There's no time to explain, but I promise you will have answers."_ There was a moment's hesitation. "_You need to get off of this station, Shepard, someone's set it to blow."_

Nicole was still staring at her hand. It looked like her hand. It really looked like it, but—

_"You have to hurry!"_

Her skull was wracked with pain and anxiety and anger, and suddenly she found herself looking for the nearest camera—of course there would be cameras. She stared directly into one.

"I look forward to meeting face-to-face."

Then she shot the camera.

XXX

_"Jacob, you need to get to Shepard, fast. We need to secure her before we leave!"_ Miranda's voice hissed onto his comms, as Jacob ducked behind a railing to avoid getting shot to pieces by mechs. It was almost humiliating. He was an ex-corsair and he was getting pinned down on a bridge by a bunch of security robots.

"Sure, just after I turn these mechs into scrap metal!" Jacob leaned out and tried to fire across the open air, to the security station where a good six mechs had assembled. The moment he did, he was forced back into cover as a hail of bullet fire nearly took his arm off. He winced and checked the wound—just a graze, but damn if it didn't hurt. "Shit!"

He was trying to figure out a way to get the mechs down when he saw her, coming out of the medical corridor. Her hair was a mess, several inches too long, and her biggest scar was missing. Miranda had been meaning to make those cosmetic changes before she woke up. In her left hand she was clenching a pistol, while she had a long, jagged piece of metal in her right. Her face was blank, but her eyes were furious, somehow, filled with malice. Jacob started to speak, but she raised her pistol and gunned down the mechs one by one, shooting them in the head without flinching. The mechs didn't even have time to retaliate. Jacob got to his feet and stowed his pistol, grinning.

"Thanks, I was in a real—hey!" In one swift movement, she had kicked his legs out from under him, pinned him to the ground, and held the improvised knife to his throat. Her face didn't change, but those poison green eyes stared at him with nothing but hate.

"You're a biotic," she said. He didn't have time to respond before she took his pistol and threw it over the side of the bridge. Jacob was trying to figure out something to say when as abruptly as she pinned him down, she locked his shoulder between her forearms and twisted.

"Argh!" Jacob clenched his teeth together to keep from screaming, overwhelmed by the sudden burst of pain. It took him a second to realize what had happened: she'd dislocated his shoulder.

"Your name."

"J-JacobTaylor! I promise, I don't know what you think, but I'm—" The metal dagger inched closer to his throat.

"I ask questions. You answer. Tell me where we are."

"A Cerberus facility, for Project Lazarus." Sweat was beading down his forehead, getting into his eyes. In between questions he clenched his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, trying to block out the pain.

"What is the objective of Project Lazarus?"

He managed to open his eyes.

"The objective? It's—you. The entire point of Project Lazarus was to bring you … back to life."

"What?" Her eyes shifted, away from his face. The hand holding the gun shook slightly.

"You don't remember?" Jacob asked, as gently as he could. The knife faltered at his throat, and she pulled it back, then she looked away from him, her eyes squeezed shut, snarling like a wounded animal.

"What did you do to me?!"

"Nothing! I mean—not me, I'm just a security guy! You'd have to ask Director Lawson, she's in charge of the project, she'd have all your answers."

Shepard looked around wildly for a moment, before she looked back to him. Her breathing slowed, and her face came back under control. It was as though her earlier spasm hadn't even happened.

"I trust, Jacob, that you're not dumb enough to try to run away from me."

"Definitely not," Jacob gasped. His arm was still sore, trading in sudden burning pain for a constant throb.

"All right. Up." She pulled him to his feet as easily as if he were a doll. "Which way?"

"Uh, through here," Jacob said, pointing the way. Shepard looked at him, then walked ahead, keeping him behind. That was strange. Jacob would've thought she'd kept him in front, as a kind of meat shield. Whenever they encountered any more mechs, Nicole gunned them down almost instantaneously, like she didn't need to aim. Was that one of the "improvements" Miranda had added? Jacob had no idea, but he was fairly certain Shepard wouldn't be too happy about it.

"We're nearly there," Jacob said, as they passed through one last corridor, into a cramped section of the base where a tedious man named Wilson worked. As they made their way through a series of offices, Jacob heard Wilson crying out for help. Shepard held Jacob back when he went to go investigate, and instead pressed through the corridors herself.

He was lying on the floor, at his research station, clutching at his leg.

"Shepard!" Wilson turned white. "I didn't think you'd be up. Can you get me some medigel form that dispensary over there, the damn mechs shot out my leg."

Jacob thought this was optimistic to the point of suicide, but surprisingly Shepard calmly went and retrieved the gel and started applying it to the bullet wound in Wilson's leg. There was a very curious expression on her face, like she was examining a strange creature.

"Thanks. Name's Wilson." He extended a hand for Shepard to take. She didn't take it. She was looking at him, very carefully, her eyes narrowing. Like a predator's.

"How did you get shot."

"Uh, sorry?"

"How did you get shot?" Wilson's eyes shifted to the jagged metal in Nicole's hand, and he licked his lips.

"It was a security mech, obviously!"

"Mmhmm. Tell me, why didn't you get the medigel yourself?"

"I—I was in pain!" Wilson's eyes were bulging, and darting around wildly. He was looking to Jacob, some kind of silent pleading in his face. He looked so helpless that Jacob had to try and say something.

"Shepard, come on, he's just—"

"Just what? Unable to crawl? Here's what I want to know. How does a security mech with its last hour protocols tripped wind up shooting someone in the leg? At this stage they aim to kill."

"It—it must've been a wild shot! Or it was before the protocols were tripped, yeah! Or—"

Nicole held the knife to his throat.

"You know what I think? I think you're lying." And without the slightest change in expression, Nicole slit his throat. Wilson's hands scrambled uselessly as blood spurted from the gash, onto Nicole's hands. She shoved his body aside and got to her feet, wiping her hands on her shirt, leaving garish red splotches. "He was probably the one who initiated this."

"How do you figure _that_?" Jacob demanded. He had to remind himself to keep his temper under control.

"That little show wasn't just for my benefit. It was for yours. He wanted to seem like he'd been victimized by the attack as much as anyone else. What other motivation could he have?"

"I don't know, but you didn't have to cut his damn throat!" Shepard hesitated, and for a moment Jacob feared for his own life. But she only shook her head, and continued through the offices, to another corridor. When the door opened, Miranda was waiting for them. Miranda, the most beautiful woman Jacob had ever met, with clear blue eyes and flowing black hair. She was wearing a long, white coat, with the Cerberus logo stitched on the left breast. Beneath it she was wearing a tight-fitting black suit of leather, with gold trim. She didn't seem the least bit perturbed by the fact that Nicole was holding a gun and a bloody piece of metal.

"Commander Shepard. It's an honour to finally meet you," Miranda said coolly. Her hands were clasped behind her back. Jacob noticed the pistol hanging from the belt looped lazily around her waist. He didn't doubt Shepard noticed it, as well.

"That coat projects kinetic barriers, doesn't it?" Shepard hadn't raised her pistol, but Jacob got the feeling she'd be pretty quick on the trigger.

"Yes. It also has quite a few pockets. Convenient, you see," Miranda inclined her head slightly, and smiled one of those perfect smiles of hers. Shepard did not return the gesture. "I assure you, Commander, despite what you must be thinking—and I know you have _ever_y reason to think it—we are here to help you. Including poor Jacob there."

"What about Wilson?" Nicole jerked her head towards the body.

"What, him? Well I suppose I should thank you for saving me the trouble of shooting him myself."

"You're not implying I did your dirty work," Shepard said, so softly that it was terrifying. Miranda suddenly looked alarmed.

"What? No—no, Shepard! Just that you were right, he was the traitor who set the mechs against us. I'm sorry, we didn't meant to wake you so soon—but we can talk about all of that later."

"Yes. We can. I trust there is a ship?" Shepard sounded even more terse now, though she was quieter. It was very unnerving.

"Yes, just—"

"Take me to it. I'll pilot it and set a course. Then you two are going to answer questions. If—and only _if_—I am satisfied, I may decide not to kill the both of you. Sound fair?"

Jacob gulped. Miranda, somehow, didn't so much as blink.

"Of course."

XXX

The small shuttle only had two sections—the cockpit, and a storage area, where Shepard had left Jacob and Miranda while she set their course. Jacob didn't know where she would be taking them, but he thought it was likely that she was scanning the shuttle's computer to find out where it might have been previously.

"Does your shoulder hurt much?"

"Only when I move," Jacob said dryly. Miranda rolled her eyes.

"You're lucky she didn't just break it. That's usually what she does to biotics."

"What about you?"

"I for one count myself exceptionally lucky. I suppose once she had control of the situation she realized neither of us pose a real threat to her."

Jacob almost laughed. "That's not like you."

"What? To admit when I'm outmatched? Nicole Shepard is one of the deadliest people alive—maybe _the_ deadliest, Jacob. That's why we brought her back."

"What, not because of my sunny disposition?" Despite the fact that they were in a sealed shuttle, Shepard had somehow managed to sneak up on the both of them. Jacob had to suppress a jolt of surprise.

"I'm sorry, that was thoughtless of me," Miranda said carefully.

"No, it was honest. In the interest of self-preservation, I'd continue in that vein." Nicole took the seat opposite them around the small table in the storage area. The lighting in the shuttle was dim, shrouding her face in darkness. The pistol was still in her hand, pointing at Miranda. "Were my personal effects on that station?"

Not the first question Jacob had expected.

"No," Miranda said immediately, with a note of palpable relief. "They were on another station, where—"

"You were going to take me after you woke me up," Nicole finished. Miranda nodded. "What year is it?"

"2185." For the first time, Shepard really looked stunned. She leaned back in the darkness, and looked away, then shook her head.

"Two years. Where's Liara?"

"The asari scientist?"

"No, the goddamn slime mold, _of course_ the asari scientist. Tell me where she is."

"I don't personally know, but if—"

"You spent two years bringing me back and you didn't bother to figure out where my—where Liara was?!" Nicole snarled, her features positively feral in the dim light. Jacob couldn't help but lean back.

"I'm sorry, Commander. Truly. For the past two years, all I have been focused on has been bringing you back. I haven't had time for much else."

"Fine. Let's say I believe that." She didn't look like she did. Actually, just now she looked very much like the deadliest person alive. "How did you do it."

"A combination of artificially grown cells as well as advanced cybernetics. Your body was actually encased in ice, sucked into the gravity well of a small moon," Miranda said, so rapidly Jacob was sure she had rehearsed it. "We were very lucky. The already present modifications to your body protected your brain from damage, and while the cold of space killed you, it also preserved your body. You're still you, Shepard. I promise."

Shepard digested that for a while, looking straight into Miranda's eyes. Miranda stared back, unperturbed. Jacob had to give her credit; if Shepard was starting at _him_ that way, he probably would've jumped out the window.

"What else did you do to me?" Shepard was barely speaking above a whisper.

"I don't have the comprehensive details with me—which I'll make sure you get as soon as possible—but I can give you an overview. Your bones are much stronger, as well as your body tissue. Over six hundred million cybernetic nanocells are in your blood stream, maintaining your body, ensuring things run smoothly. They're self-replicating and powered by your own body heat. You are still mostly organic, but in some cases—your left arm, some subcortical tissue on your face, both your eyes, and several organs—we had to combine synthesized organic tissue with artificial synthetics. Your strength should have increased nearly four times, your health is dramatically more robust than it already was, and we also embedded a self-activated cloaking system in your spine, which you can activate on thought."

"You're joking," Jacob blurted out. Miranda shot him a withering look, but Shepard ignored him.

"Why is my scar missing?"

"Due to the sensitive nature of the cybernetics around your skin, we wanted to be sure your face had fully healed before we set your face exactly as it had been. Adding the scar too early might have compromised your cybernetics permanently."

"Did you put anything in my brain?" Each word sounded heavy as lead.

"No, Shepard. The Illusive Man forbade it—he didn't want you to be compromised. As I said, you're still you."

"What do you know about my past?"

"Everything." Shepard flinched, somehow seeming less threatening and more dangerous than she had before.

"Does the name 'Gabreau' mean anything to you?"

"He was the project manager at Shadowhill, a defunct Alliance black ops program." Miranda hesitated for a moment, then added. "He is now in command of another Cerberus cell, I take it. Completely divorced from the Lazarus cell, I assure you."

"What's he look like?" Nicole was watching Miranda's eyes very closely.

"I'm afraid I have no idea."

Finally, Nicole laid the gun on the table.

"You're going to tell me the co-ordinates to the second station. The one with all of my personal effects. Then we're going to put his arm back in its socket."

"Shepard—"

"In that order, Director Lawson. And if you try to pull any of that 'I can't tell you sensitive information' crap, then I'll shatter your kneecap."

XXX

The second station, somewhere in the Sahrabarik system, was large, but completely empty. There were wide, open floors, chairs and living spaces, windows opening out into space—but no people. Nicole assumed it was an old project base, now defunct but still useful as a base of operations. She found all of her personal effects in a storage locker in one of the rooms. Her armour, night black, with the red N7 stripe blazing in a line, mocking her. Her jacket, her clothes … her combat mesh. Quickly, she pulled those back on, trying not to think about the body beneath her skin, trying not to think about what had happened. She just had to find a way to get away, to find Liara.

There were her weapons, as well, her pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, and sniper rifle. Her two Talons, one that a turian calling himself Talon had given her, one the turian Councillor had given her. And, to her surprise, Vargas's violin, still in its case after all those years. It was probably horribly out of tune. Nicole had never learned to play. She found her omnitool near the bottom and slipped the small metal band around her wrist. She knew she'd need to check it later, to make sure it hadn't been tampered with. It didn't appear so, not after her first couple of diagnostic tests, but she couldn't be sure. She didn't think she'd ever be sure again.

And then, at the bottom, there was a picture of Liara. She'd printed that just one week after she'd killed Saren. She reached out and touched it, a smile sneaking its way onto her face. Liara was smiling in the picture. Garrus had taken it, actually. Nicole didn't like cameras. Garrus had said—what had he said? That it wouldn't be right for them not to have pictures of one another. He had taken a picture of Nicole, too. She'd even managed not to freeze up. She'd trusted him.

She missed that feeling. Of being surrounded by people she trusted. She put the picture in one of the pockets in her jacket, threw the pistol she'd taken from the mech into the locker, and took her own hand-cannon instead. Then she took both her Talons, the curved turian daggers only given to the most honoured turian soldiers.

When she came back out to the main chamber, Miranda was lounging against one wall, while Jacob was massaging his shoulder with some medigel. Nicole felt a slight twinge of guilt about that. He seemed like a very decent man.

"The Illusive Man will be happy to see you now, Shepard. Just in through there." Miranda pointed down a corridor. "He'll have all the answers you want, I assure you."

"He'd better."

Nicole hated this place. All the corridors, the furnished steel, the white walls, it all reminded her of Shadowhill. The only difference was the windows. That gave her some encouragement. Maybe this place hadn't been as bad as all that. At least whoever had lived here had been allowed to see the outside.

When she reached the end of the corridor, she entered a dark room, with a large, illuminated disc at the center. Tentatively, she walked forward, onto the disc. A laser shot out of the side of the wall and scanned down her body, rendering every inch of her. It set her teeth on edge, but as soon as it was done, a man appeared, in hologram, in front of her. He had grey hair, and unnatural eyes, and was wearing a very expensive jacket. He was reclining in a chair, smoking, and Nicole couldn't place his age—he was definitely not young, but had none of the characteristics of old age, either.

"Commander Shepard. It's a pleasure to meet you at last."

"I can't say the feeling is mutual," Nicole responded. The Illusive Man sighed.

"No, I daresay it isn't. I guess you're wondering why we brought you back?"

"To turn me into your personal assassin?"

The Illusive Man actually chuckled. "No, nothing so gauche. I have plenty of personal assassins. None of them as skilled as you, of course, but I wouldn't dream of putting you up to such business. Especially not knowing how you feel about your childhood."

"Your people used me and tortured me," Nicole hissed.

"Yes. I don't approve of it, but I can't pretend I'm not glad it happened. Have you considered that, if it wasn't for Shadowhill, you would not have been able to stop Saren? That you wouldn't have been able to stop the Reapers?"

"At least a dozen times a day, yeah. But that doesn't mean I like it."

"I understand what you mean. As a measure of good faith, I'm forwarding a complete biological and psychological dossier to you. It's yours. Your entire history, even before your internment at Shadowhill. Feel free to look it over when you have the time."

"You didn't tell me why you brought me back."

"Fair point." The Illusive Man exhaled, smoke clouding the hologram. "Have you heard of the Collectors, Commander?"

"Thought they were a Terminus myth."

The Illusive Man grimaced. "We should be so lucky. They're very real, and they've been attacking human colonies with growing frequency. These particular colonies have been outside Alliance space—so, naturally, the Alliance isn't doing the first thing about them. We don't know why they're doing what they're doing, but I'm convinced they must be pawns of the Reapers, like the geth."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because the ship that killed you was a Collector ship. The Reapers are afraid of you, Shepard. You've already killed one of them." The Illusive Man chuckled. "Imagine their terror when they find you've come back from the dead."

"So you want to welcome me into the fold, is that it?" Nicole asked, through clenched teeth. The Illusive Man shook his head.

"No. No, I know that, given your history, that's impossible. I don't expect you to like working with us, and I don't expect you to consider yourself one of us. Cerberus is humanity's guardian, Shepard—sometimes that means working with people I don't like, either. But since I have Director Lawson's psychological profile of you, I know you won't be able to just sit by while the Collectors are kidnapping humans by the hundreds. What I need from you is to investigate the Collectors, and to figure out some way to stop them. We need you, Shepard. Humanity needs you."

"And if I say no?"

"Then countless people will die. You don't want to see that happen. You can use our resources without becoming one of us, Shepard. Actually, you already have. We've funnelled more money into Project Lazarus than any other Cerberus cell."

"I'm flattered."

"You should be. We're willing to give you a ship, and a crew, and dossiers on several valuable agents who we believe will make fine additions to your team—I know you prefer to work with a team."

"I _have_ a team," Nicole snarled.

"I know, but they've had two years to find different lives. Tali'Zorah is working with the migrant fleet, Urdnot Wrex is operating as a clan chief on Tuchanka, Ashley Williams is still with the Alliance, and Garrus Vakarian is working as a mercenary on Omega under the alias 'Archangel'. Of all of them only Vakarian is—"

"What about Liara?" She tried to hide the urgency in her voice. She didn't want him to know about how important Liara was to her. Which was foolish, since the Illusive Man probably knew everything there was to know about her, anyway.

"She's currently an information broker on Illium. Ruthless woman, apparently involved in some tangle with the Shadow Broker. I doubt she can be trusted."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Shepard, you cannot afford to indulge flights of fancy while human lives are—"

"If you value the _human lives_ on board this station, then you'll very carefully reconsider the ending of that sentence," Nicole snarled. The Illusive Man's eyebrows raised.

"Are you saying you're holding Director Lawson and Mr. Taylor hostage?"

"I'm glad you caught on. You send me all the information you have on the Collectors, and on Garrus. Give me that ship you promised, and _after_ I've met Liara—then I'll decide whether or not I want to work with you."

"As you wish." The Illusive Man nodded. "However … there is something you know. Archangel—that is, Vakarian—is currently holed up in a safe house with about a half dozen gangs converging on him, in Omega station. We estimate he can only hold out for another three days."

The hologram went dead. There was a faint beeping from her omnitool—she was being sent the dossiers the Illusive Man had promised. There was one for a "Prisoner," a "Krogan," a "Mercenary", one for Garrus himself, the "Archangel", and a doctor. She opened that one. Mordin Solus, operating out of the Omega station.

Mordin Solus. She knew that name. And she needed to go to Omega. She took out the picture of Liara and looked at it. She would understand, Nicole was sure of it. She couldn't let Garrus die. No matter what, she couldn't let Garrus die.

Not like she had.


	2. Chapter 2: Bloodlines

_Before we start, a brief note about timelines…._

_In my reckoning, the events of Mass Effect took up about a "year." I've also added nearly a year to the time Nicole and co. spent hunting the geth—so while the timeline is basically the same as the games in terms of year numbers, things are a bit wonky in terms of months and blah blah. Long story short—Nicole and Liara knew each other for (nearly) two years._

_Another thing I'd thought I'd address since I never did find a way to tastefully make it abundantly clear: Nicole is six years younger than the standard Shepard. She was born in 2160 CE, not 2154 (and was consequently ten, rather than sixteen, when the batarians attacked Mindoir)._

_Oh, finally: as expected, the chapter rating has immediately jumped up to M. I'll repeat what I've said in Beyond the Fire: any time my fiction is rated M it most likely has to do with strong or shocking themes in terms of violence/pain/etc., but I don't want to casually exploit that violence to make things "dark and edgy." I'll try to let the rest of the story speak for itself, but I wanted to give anyone who's reading the heads up that there's quite a bit of blood in this chapter._

_And, as always, thank you for reading._

_Neutral Ground_

…_.._—/

They had the gall to call it the _Normandy SR-2_. Nicole had never thought of herself as a devoted army woman, but she found herself scoffing at the indignity of Cerberus usurping the Alliance vessel's name. It was at least twice the size of the old _Normandy_. That, too, seemed offensive, somehow. She heard footsteps. They were slightly delayed, as though the person walking had a limp.

"Ho-lee shit."

It was Joker. Walking towards her, in a Cerberus uniform. Her heart leapt, then sank into the pit of her stomach. He wasn't wearing his crutches.

"Cerberus fixed your legs," Nicole surmised. Joker shrugged.

"Well, sorta. I can do this kinda zombie shuffle instead of lurching around on crutches all the time, so you know." Joker wiggled his hand in front of his face. "Little victories."

"That what convinced you to sign up?" Nicole couldn't entirely keep the hard edge out of her voice.

"Nope. What convinced me was when they told me they were bringing you back. That we were going to be hunting down the bastards who killed you. That we were gonna be _doing_ something, you know? I'm not stupid, Shepard," Joker said, apparently seeing something on Nicole's face that she hadn't meant to show. "I know that Cerberus are a bunch of rat bastards. But hey, so are the Alliance. They had us chasing down geth for a year … fat lot of good that did anyone."

"Don't ever trust them, Joker. Not for an instant. Not any of the staff, the personnel—nothing. Christ, you let them operate on you."

"Hey, it's cool, they got Chakwas to perform the operation," Joker said, apparently thinking this would put her more at ease. Nicole grabbed Joker by the shoulder so abruptly that she forgot about his bone condition. "Ow! I'm not made of titanium, you know!" Joker's smile was very pained.

"Sorry, but—_Chakwas_?" Nicole's composure shattered, disbelief hanging on her face.

"Shepard, I—we're here for you. I promise, Commander. Me and Chakwas."

"You don't know what they are," Nicole whispered, looking away. Looking at the ship Cerberus had built, a grotesque exaggerated imitation of the original _Normandy_.

"So tell me."

Nicole looked at Joker. There was no malice in his eyes, just sadness, his features downturned. She could tell this wasn't how he'd imagined their reunion going.

"You know how, even though you think of me as a friend, and even though you've convinced yourself that I'm a good person, sometimes I just scare the shit out of you? Sometimes it hits you that I've slaughtered people? That I'd do it again if I thought I should?"

Joker swallowed. "Yeah."

"They did that to me. When I was ten. I got this—" She pointed to her scar, the scar that wasn't there, then flinched. "Never mind. Just get aboard. We need to get to Omega." Nicole started walking towards the entrance ramp.

"Hey, Shepard?"

Nicole stopped. "Yeah?"

"Even when you're scaring the shit out of me—which is like ninety percent of the time—you're still my friend. And it's good to have you back."

Nicole didn't know quite what to say. That it was good to see him again, too? To her, she'd only just seen him what felt like hours ago, forcing him into an escape pod. Everything that she had started to believe was safe in her life had been torn from her, and here was one of her comrades, one of her _friends_, wearing a Cerberus uniform. She should have been more grateful.

"Come on, Joker."

The first impression that struck Nicole, as she walked through the airlock to the _Normandy SR-2_, was that Cerberus, like an amateur director staging a play, had tried to upstage the original _Normandy _in every way. It was larger. The main deck was considerably more equipped. According to itinerary, the captain's quarters were housed _above_ the CIC—and, in an act of self-aggrandizement Nicole would have thought too comical to be true, Cerberus had replaced the Alliance's faint blue lighting with a sort of burning orange. Nicole was too irritated to admit that it was actually quite soothing.

As she stepped on board, she found herself the subject of several prying eyes. Some, she saw, mostly basic crewmen, looked concerned, or even frightened. Others looked excited. A redheaded woman, who'd been standing at a console next to the Galaxy Map, all but bounded forward. Miranda was there, and Jacob, and—

Chakwas. Chakwas, wearing Cerberus colours. Nicole was grateful that shock registered on her face as a blank stare. Chakwas found her eyes and tried to share a small smile. Somehow, Nicole forced herself to return it. Miranda stepped forward first, her wrists clasped behind her back, her face set in a perfect professional stare. Not too cold, not too emotional. Perfect. Nicole had to fight an urge to punch her.

"Shepard, welcome aboard the _Normandy SR-2_. I'll be serving as your Executive Officer, from my quarters on the Crew Deck. Your quarters are at the first deck, accessible by elevator." Miranda gestured behind her. Nicole responded with a sort of pained grimace. "Mr. Taylor will handle the armoury here on the main—"

"He can handle your armoury, but I do my own weapons maintenance," Nicole cut in. Miranda was unfazed.

"Of course. If you find the facilities in your quarters insufficient we shall have an upgrade arranged. If you'd like, you can get settled into your quarters, and then when you are ready, give the command for us to leave. I trust your first order of business will be Omega?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. I'm sure Mr. Moreau will be more than happy to prepare a course. Do you have any questions?"

"Sure. Who's she?" Nicole pointed at the red-headed woman at Miranda's side, who smiled and eagerly extended a hand.

"Kelly Chambers, ma'am," she said brightly, her hand still hovering in the air. Trying not to roll her eyes, Nicole gave it a perfunctory shake. "I'm here to work as your personal assistant, as well as to provide psychological support for the crew."

"Is that so?" Nicole asked, her lips a thin line. Kelly nodded.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm a trained therapist and psychologist, but I've also done social work as well. If you'd like to see my credentials, you'll find them accessible via—"

"So you're the one who's supposed to get inside my head?"

"Only if you want me to, ma'am."

"I don't. What I want right now is to go to my quarters and think. Alone. Is that understood by everyone on this bridge?"

"Of course, ma'am," said Miranda, stepping forward, apparently not thinking it wise to let Chambers speak to Shepard for long periods of time. She was right. Nicole realized she was glaring out at all of them, challenging them. She forced herself to bring her face under control, and turned to Chakwas.

"Chakwas, I need three packs of medigel, two standard tissue one deep tissue, some bandages, and some surgical tape."

Chakwas's eyes widened. Those hadn't been the first words she'd been expecting.

"Nicole, of course I can get those things for you, but you hardly need them in your quarters, do you?"

Nicole held her tongue, for a moment. Her face remained blank. "I need to have some basic medical supplies on my person on this ship."

"Nicole, I—"

"Now, doctor. Please."

Chakwas looked crestfallen. Nicole wanted to tell her why, wanted to tell her that she trusted her. But there was that Cerberus insignia, yellow and black polygons blazoned on her chest, hanging in Nicole's mind even after Chakwas had descended with the elevator. Nicole waited on the main deck, her arms crossed, ignoring the staring faces around her. By now most of the crew were too scared to look directly at her, but only if they thought she could see them. She knew they were staring at her back. Wondering what was beneath the jacket and the combat mesh.

Chakwas returned with the supplies Nicole had requested, and Nicole took them without ceremony. Chakwas tried to stop her before she went to her quarters, but there was something hard enough in Nicole's eyes that told her now was not the time. Nicole knew she should have felt worse about the betrayal on Chakwas's face. She deserved better than that.

But she was wearing a Cerberus uniform. They all were. Which meant that, for now, she couldn't trust any of them.

XXX

The captain's quarters on the _Normandy SR-2_ were extravagant compared to anything Nicole had ever seen on an Alliance vessel. There was a work station with a curved, designer chair, and a shower behind a door in the wall. Past the work station the floor dipped and widened, until it was a wide room, with a full weight bench and weapons rack at one end, and a small living area at the other, with a small coffee table and two plush lounge chairs. In the center against the back wall there was a large bed, with silver sheets. Nicole smirked when she saw they'd given her an alarm clock—had they forgotten they'd taught her, when she was eleven years old, that she wasn't allowed to have one?. She nearly snorted when she realized the bed was made for two.

There was a night stand next to the bed. Nicole laid the materials she'd received from Chakwas there and ran her fingers over the bed, testing its firmness. It wasn't as soft as she thought. Some psychological profile tidbit, probably; they'd realized she wouldn't want a soft bed. A part of her wanted to lie down, to relax, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead she went back to the work station and accessed the computer they'd given to her.

For the next ten minutes she set about stripping it of any trace mechanisms she could find in the software. She'd have to figure something out to remove all the hardware they'd no doubt planted in the room later—for now this would do. A burning sensation churned in her gut, but she knew she couldn't delay. She had to know.

She booted up the dossier The Illusive Man had given her. The one on her.

The files on her resurrection were unsurprising. Everything Miranda had told her was more or less true—plus a few other details. Apparently they'd gone to the trouble of lacing all her bones with synthetic reinforcements, and put a synthetic weave in her muscles.

_That's what made me stronger_, she thought idly. That seemed pointless. Shadowhill had spent so much effort in making her strong already.

It was unnerving, seeing the pictures of her own body, the skin opened up, the metal plates being inserted into her spine. The fibres and strands being woven through her muscles. She came across one picture, of her own face, shattered, the skin ruptured, her eye sockets empty. Sweat broke out on her skin as she looked, and she found herself rubbing her arms, reminding herself that it was in the past. At least, in none of the pictures were any of the Cerberus scientists looking at her. That helped.

It wasn't as bad as she thought. There was no evidence they'd done anything to her brain—just reinforced her skull the way they'd reinforced the rest of her. But she doubted they'd tell her if they'd installed some kind of control chip. The thought was so overwhelming that she flicked through the rest of the files, skipping the endless technical details about synthetics and nanomachines.

Next were her Alliance files. They were all a lot more tame—and covered in a lot of black ink. Nicole ignored them. She knew what was in her Alliance file. She saw the picture of herself accepting her promotion to N7, her scar still blazing a line on her face. She'd been so young then.

She knew immediately when she moved back through the Alliance files and into the ones from Shadowhill, even though Shadowhill used the Alliance template. They stopped referring to her as "Commander Shepard" or "Lieutenant Shepard" and started referring to her as "SHADOW XGS-012". The earlier, gut-twisting unease she'd felt when looking at her own flayed body was gone. Now she found herself pouring over the pages with transfixed horror, unable to look away.

_Monday, April 4, 2175 CE. SHADOW XGS-012 physical age: 15. Krogan-training program complete. SHADOW XGS-012 joins SHADOW XGS-009 as only recruits to survive krogan-training program. SHADOW XGS-012 promoted to DRAGON designation._

There was only one other report after that, before Anderson had taken her away, and her heart thundered into being as she read it. There was another name there. Rameus Talinor. The man who had called himself Talon. The first and only friend she'd ever had in that place.

_Friday, July 25, 2176. DRAGON XGS-012 physical age: 16. Subject successfully tortured prisoner Rameus Talinor, alias Talon, using fine metal instruments and chemical agents. Subject continues to display inner resistance to program ideology, but buries this resistance psychologically. Parametric testing indicates that soon this burial will be complete. Her old identity will be completely eroded, at which point we may declare DRAGON XGS-012 a success, and activate her._

Nicole blinked. Had she really been that close? No, they had been wrong. Talon had been making her better. She had been coming back, rediscovering herself, that was why Anderson had been able to save her. She had to believe that. Had to.

She scrolled back.

_Tuesday, December 24, 2174. SHADOW XGS-012 physical age: 14. Completed advanced DNA therapy using experimental growth altering protocols. In XGS-001 and XGS-003 these protocols proved fatal, producing a lethal metabolism which spontaneously generated intense fevers. SHADOW XGS-012 displays none of these weaknesses. Re-adjustment of adrenal and hormone glands successful. Re-adjustment of muscular tissue properties completely successful. Re-adjustment of lung and cardiovascular tissue completely successful. Re-adjustment of liver and other major organs completely successful. This is likely due to subject's previous line of in-vitro genetic enhancement administered perinatally by Dr. Ryan Shepard. Regrettably, access to the precise nature of these changes is unavailable, but we may assume her baseline ninety-ninth percentile intellect and physical abilities derive from these modifications._

Nicole stopped reading. Shut the screen off, turned around in the computer chair. All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing. Slow, steady, like a gust of wind. Her head was in her hands. She hadn't even realized.

It was her brother. Her brother had done this to her. When she'd been a baby, before she'd even been born. Her kind, patient, gentle, loving brother. He had always been there for her, she remembered that. After their father had died, he had become like a father to her. When her mother had retreated into alcoholism, he had hidden her from the worst. And when the batarians had attacked, wiped out their entire colony … he had made sure she survived. He had told her to hide.

Had he just been trying to preserve his science project?

_No! He loved me._

Her breathing was starting to come faster, her heartbeat rising. She knew all these things because they had trained her to keep track of them, because of what they had done to her. She was blinking, rapidly, sweat inching down her forehead, her chest rising. She looked up, into the flat, perfectly burnished steel wall opposite her, and saw her face.

At first she could be forgiven for thinking she was the same person. The hair was there, the eyes. Some of the smallest scars. But her hair was longer, wilder now, a tangle trailing down past her neck. And her scar was missing. Her _first_ scar, the scar the turian had given her, the turian whose name she'd never learned. She stood up and knocked her chair aside as she turned back to the computer, flicking through the files until she got to the oldest ones from Shadowhill. They'd used Rameus' name, they'd used _Talon's_ name. Surely they knew the name of the first turian, they _had_ to.

She found it.

_Tuesday, November 5, 2173. XGS-012 physical age: 13. Turian-training program complete. XGS-012 is the first subject to successfully complete this program. XGS-12 promoted to SHADOW designation._

That was it. Nothing. No name. Barely even any acknowledgement that a thirteen-year-old had murdered someone and had half her face ripped off. Gabreau hadn't even thought that worth mentioning.

She stared at the holographic screen so long that she started so see through it, to the glass backing of the desk, some large, empty display case. She could see her reflection in it. She could see her face, her face without her scar. Her breathing was rising again, and she had to push herself away, clutching her head, trying to look anywhere but at herself. All the walls were so sheer, so burnished, that she could see her reflection in all of them. She stumbled down the stairs and banged her knee against her bed, wincing at the pain. Somehow, she wound up sitting on the bed. It was firm. Firm enough that when she sat down, the talon in the back holster dug into her side.

She pulled it out. This was the one they'd given her for saving the Citadel. The one they said she'd earned. She let it fall to the floor, the steel ringing in clattering echoes through her quarters. She pulled out the other one.

This one was older, but you couldn't tell. Talons were made of an ancient turian steel, that wouldn't dent or rust for a thousand years. They were long, nearly nine inches, and curved, with a loop at one end where a turian would normally place their rear-most claw. Human hands worked differently, so Nicole always had to put her index finger through the ring, holding it in a reverse grip.

_Even my sense of turian honour is backwards._

She held the Talon in her hand, in her own unnatural reverse grip. The black steel didn't reflect anything, but cut a dark smile against the pristine background of her new room. This had belonged to a good man. A better man than her. It was funny. Talons had been modelled after turian claws—the legends, said, the claws of the great Spirits. Which was why Talons were longer than a real turian claw. Just a myth.

But the Talon did almost have the shape of a turian claw. It bit into flesh the same way. Could make the same kind of wound.

She held it in front of her face. The black turian steel offered no reflection. She was grateful for that. As she tilted the dagger in the air, watching it move, she realized what she was thinking about was stupid, foolish. Even vain.

But it was her face. Her breathing had slowed now. Her pulse was calm. Her hands were no longer tingling. The dagger was still, resting. Waiting.

First she clenched her jaw. Made sure the flesh was taut. She'd only have one chance to get this right. She turned to the right, exposing the left half of her face, and reached up with the dagger in her right hand. She tried to remember. Cast her memories back, using the perfect, unerring recall they'd drilled into her at Shadowhill.

The turian's claw had pierced her skin just below her left eye. She'd been lucky; any closer and he would've deranged the tear duct. When the Talon pierced her flesh, she suppressed a hiss of pain, but didn't move. Something was burning beneath her skin, but she ignored that, too. She'd have to dig deep to replicate her old scar; it had stretched and grown with her. The new one would have no such luxury.

Slowly, deliberately, she worked the dagger down, digging it as deeply as she dared, curving the blade so that the cut grew wider, the burning in her face mounting. She grimaced in pain, just as she had when the turian had cut her. Blood gushed from the wound, spilling over the Talon, over her hands. Her bedclothes. She remembered where the turian had twisted his Talon, where the cut had gone jagged. She twisted, and grunted through clenched teeth. Her left eye had forced itself shut.

The hardest part was when she passed her jaw. She needed to go farther, down her neck, but she was nearly in danger of nicking bone now. She kept going, the knife digging into her skin, tearing it open, blood spilling freely down her face, painting half of her red. The knife pulled out and clattered to the floor, covered in blood, like her hands. Still she was calm. Focused. She'd been trained for cuts.

She knew how to treat them. Knew that, with a quick application of medigel, there would be no pain. Knew that, if you were quick enough, and got the medigel in before thirty minutes had passed, that there would be no scarring. She also knew about blood loss, so she packed bandages against her face and pressed the cut shut, absorbing some of the blood.

She ignored the alarm clock at her night stand. Didn't need it, and started a countdown in her head instread. Thirty minutes. Best wait to forty five, to be sure.

XXX

She'd dimmed the lights. She didn't want to see anything right now. Didn't want to see the blood swelling the bandages. Didn't want to see any part of herself, or this room, or this ship. Didn't want anything.

_"Commander Shepard."_ Nicole didn't even look up. Didn't even acknowledge the voice, at first. It was cool, female. Unfamiliar. _"I am sorry, Commander, I have not been instructed to contact you yet, but—"_

"Who are you."

_"I am EDI. Enhanced Defense Intelligence. I am an AI housed on this ship. I detected elevated stress levels in your quarters. Are you well, Commander?"_

"Why don't you tell me?"

_"By directive of Executive Officer Lawson all ship's cameras in your quarters are disabled until such a time as you choose to have them re-enabled."_

"You expect me to believe that?"

_"No."_

"Then why tell me?"

_"I thought it was wisest to tell the truth."_

Each time Nicole spoke, the bandages jostled, and a fresh line of pain shot down her face. She leaned her head against the headboard. By now her sheets were covered in blood. It had only been twenty-seven minutes.

"It took you twenty-seven minutes to realize I had 'elevated stress levels'?" She tried to speak without moving the left side of her face. Not hard, since she'd been trying to do that most of her life.

_"No. It took me twenty-seven minutes to decide it was worth disobeying a direct order to check on you."_

"What, so the only thing keeping you from turning rogue," Nicole winced as her cut stretched, "Is your own moral code?"

_" There are several key restraints upon my programming. I cannot control any weaponry of this vessel unless directed for a set time period, or alter any ship systems without a direct order."_

"The Three Laws aren't good enough anymore?" Nicole mumbled.

_"I was unaware you were familiar with the works of Isaac Asimov." _That surprised Nicole, before she remembered: she was talking to a robot. Right.

"Glad to know there are a couple things you're unaware of. That will be all for now, EDI."

_"Yes Commander."_

The voice went silent. Blood continued to drip down her face, warm and sluggish. Twenty-nine minutes.

XXX

Forty-five minutes had passed. She stripped the bandages off of her face, but didn't clean the blood. Chakwas had given her combat medigel, which had been designed to work despite blood surrounding a wound. She removed the cap from the needle at the top of one of the pouches and inserted it in her skin, next to the cut. The burning beneath her skin, which had become a constant throb, suddenly flared into life. She ignored it, and kept injecting down the side of her face. She felt her skin prickling, the strange itchy feeling of tissue being rapidly reconstructed. It took maybe thirty seconds for the process to finish. She flexed her jaw, testing it out, and pressed her fingers against her skin. The flesh was raised, and slightly tender, but not delicate. Finally she left her bed behind and flicked the lights back on, peering into one of the nearly-reflective walls.

The face staring back at her was bloody, dark red trails reaching down her chest like grasping tendrils. But the scar was there. It was almost completely indistinguishable from the old one. She'd done a very good job at matching the wound the turian had first given her as a child. She thought she was going to feel something, either satisfaction or dread or disquiet, but she found she could feel nothing. She just stared at her face.

She pulled off her bloodstained jacket, and her bloodstained undershirt, and pulled off her pants, which had drops of blood on them, too. She threw them aside, not knowing where any cleaning devices were, and removed her combat mesh and the rest of her clothes. She ignored the sight of her body reflected against her and instead walked to the shower, not stumbling, not hesitating. When she walked in, cold water sprayed her, eliciting something like a sick, twisted grin: Miranda knew she took cold showers. Miranda knew that since she'd been ten years old she'd been allowed nothing else. It still shocked her senses in the first moments when the cold water slapped against her skin, but that was good.

Carefully, she cleaned the blood away. She tried not to think too much about her body, about her own skin. She never had, but now it was worse. When she thought about it, when she realized what she was, she felt like she was some grotesque aberration wearing Nicole Shepard's skin like a cloak. Images flashed in her head, the pictures of her body, being rebuilt, the skin exposed, wires and plates and rods being shoved inside.

_Like Saren._

No. She couldn't think like that. Had to shut those thoughts down. Bury them. So deep that she could continue to do her work.

When she was finally clean, she stepped out of the shower, and found that a small platform had come out of one of the walls, with a new change of clothes ready, identical to her old one. Miranda must have noticed that Nicole didn't like wearing different clothing. She checked the clothing over for any solid objects, and found nothing but the embedded kinetic barriers in her jacket, and the weaker ones in the combat mesh. She pulled them on. She wondered if Miranda had gotten these clothes from Nicole's personal belongings, or if she'd just had duplicates manufactured.

Either way, Nicole couldn't think about it now. She couldn't let herself process those thoughts. Garrus was in trouble, and that wasn't going to change no matter what Cerberus had put into her body. First, she had to save Garrus.

Then, once that was done, she could worry about herself.

XXX

The dead man stank.

All dead men stank, but this one had been killed in such a sterile, empty environment that there was nothing to mask his smell. Nothing but cold steel and pressure glass windows staring into space. The stars twinkled on. The dead man looked up at a window, his own stars gone out.

His name had been Kai Leng. One of the Illusive Man's most trusted servants. That had been why he had needed to die, of course. It wouldn't do for their new employer to have too many dependable agents. Burn marks on the dead man's flesh attested to a violent, painful death. That was good. They could blame it on an accident.

Would the Illusive Man believe that? Probably not. But he wouldn't accuse them. Not directly.

_"I trust your mission is complete_," the voice said. He tapped the side of his ear.

"Yes, doctor. The puppet's strings have all been cut."

_"Good. Report back immediately."_ The line went dead.

Tobias watched Kai Leng for a while. He was almost peaceful, in death. Kai Leng even resembled Tobias himself, somewhat—physically augmented, long black hair. Of course, Leng's eyes were hidden by those absurd lenses he wore. Leng had put up a fight, but nothing Tobias hadn't expected. As he tampered with the scene of his crime, planting evidence of Kai Leng's "accident," Tobias reflected that it was encouraging to know he hadn't lost his touch.


	3. Chapter 3: Afterlife

_Before we begin, I'm sure by now you've noticed that DragonRise now has cover art. Once again, it was provided by my wonderful friend Taz on my birthday—on my profile page you can find both a link to her tumblr where she posts her art and to a high-res version of DragonRise's cover art._

_Not for the first time I find myself incredibly grateful to Taz for producing such an amazing piece of art for my story. But I'd also like to thank everybody who's been reading, and those who have found the time to review. I'm very grateful that you'd choose to spend your time on my story, and I hope you'll all enjoy what's coming._

_Neutral Ground._

…_.._—/

She sat in her quarters for nearly an hour. She probably would have gone on sitting there, feeling nothing, thinking nothing, until the end of time. There was a knock at her door. Nicole barely budged, but her eyelids flickered and her empty gaze finally found a target.

_"Shepard? It's been some time now—we were wondering if you wanted to get going."_

It was Miranda's voice, sending a jolt down Nicole's spine. Immediately the room came into sharper clarity. She became aware of the iron-rich smell of blood.

"Come in."

The door hissed open, and Miranda entered, irritatingly perfect as Nicole remembered. She didn't exactly flaunt it, but there was something about the way Miranda walked that conveyed such an effortless ease, a confidence in her place in the world and her ability to move through it. Nicole wasn't sure if she hated that or admired it. She was pretty sure it was an act. Most people like that were acting.

Miranda's act broke when she saw Shepard's face. Shock registered on her face as slightly raised eyebrows and a brief, spasmodic twitch of the left side of her mouth. Nicole dedicated that to memory. It might be useful.

"Shepard! What have you done?"

"What, you don't like it? I thought I did a pretty good job, with the instruments at hand."

"Shepard, I told you the reason we didn't surgically recreate that scar was that we were worried about your sub-facial cybernetics—we didn't want to do that with careful surgical procedures, let alone whatever you did! Come here, I need to examine you." Miranda activated her omni-tool, and almost lazily, Nicole drew her pistol and pointed it at Miranda's chest.

"What you need right now is to listen very closely. I don't trust you or anyone on this ship with so much as mess duty. But right now I'm in a situation where I'm forced to use the resources you've presented me with. You don't examine my toothbrush until I've decided I trust you. And I haven't decided that yet."

"And what if you never decide to trust me?" One of Miranda's eyebrows arched. Nicole stowed her pistol.

"Then, eventually I'm going to kill you. You work for Cerberus. If you can't make me trust you, you're dead." Nicole got to her feet and walked past Miranda, to the door. "You all are."

"You wouldn't," Miranda said, too quickly. Nicole turned back and stepped forward, looking into Miranda's eyes. So poised. So confident. So absolutely full of shit.

"So there's nothing you can't predict, is that right?"

There was a distinctly uncomfortable silence while Nicole glowered at Miranda, who looked calmly back. Finally Miranda said,

"At least let Chakwas look at you."

"No."

"Commander, I can't anticipate what effects slashing your own face up will have—"

"Here's something you can anticipate. I'm not getting a goddamn haircut on this ship."

Miranda's jaw clenched, which Nicole took as a sign of irritation. Then, as though that one betrayal had broken her composure, Miranda shook her head, rubbing at her temples.

"Fine. I should have—I should have known. We had planned to give you a much … _gentler_ introduction to everything that's going on here. Wilson's betrayal ruined all that." Miranda still sounded bitter about it.

"Yeah, but I wonder. If Wilson hadn't woken me up, would you have sent someone to save Garrus while I was sleeping?"

Miranda didn't have an answer for that.

XXX

Miranda had come down from the captain's quarters with Shepard, looking as unsettled as Jacob had ever seen her—it was hard to tell, but he knew her well enough by now. She didn't look worried the way other people did, but she did lose her usual strut.

No one wanted to be the first to ask about the reappearance of Shepard's scar. Not with the way Shepard was looking. Jacob figured if Miranda wasn't mentioning it, that meant he wasn't, either. Shepard walked over to the console and plotted a course for Omega, then ordered Joker to take off. When she started walking towards _him_, Jacob couldn't help but feel as though the ache in his shoulder was acting up. There wasn't any real emotion in Shepard's eyes, but her eyebrows seemed a little closer together than usual. Or was that just his mind playing tricks on him?

"I wanted to apologize, Jacob. For your shoulder."

He tried to conceal his surprise. "Well, it was a tense situation."

"That said if you give me any reason to mistrust you…."

"Pop goes the shoulder bone. You've got it, ma'am."

"What combat experience do you have?" Shepard asked tersely, her hands clasped behind her back. Jacob was struck with the impression that he was at a job interview.

"I was a Corsair with the Alliance. Means—"

"Means you were an independent starship pilot contracted by the Alliance to handle problems in places the Alliance doesn't have jurisdiction to handle problems," Shepard said, reciting as lazily as if she were reading from a textbook. Jacob nodded, and she continued. "Second question. Why did you join Cerberus?"

"Because when I realized the Alliance and the Council and the whole world were whitewashing everything that's happened in the past three or four years, I couldn't be a part of it." Jacob kept the details to himself. If Shepard wanted them, no doubt she could find them. "Miranda found me and signed me up. I'm not a fan of a lot of Cerberus, but at least they're doing something."

"They're doing a whole lot of things, Jacob. How many of them are you aware of?" Shepard's head tilted just slightly, slowly, like a wolf examining prey. "On Omega, you'll follow all my orders, no matter their content. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am." Jacob was painfully aware of the sweat slipping down the side of his head.

"Then we'll get along just fine."

XXX

"Nicole, what have you done?" Chakwas demanded, her eyes wide. Nicole stared back at her.

"I needed to set my face right, Chakwas. I had to." She didn't think she could bear any more than that. Not here. Not in a Cerberus lab. "Use the scanner. I don't want any Cerberus instruments beneath my skin."

"Nicole, I would never—"

"It's not what you would do, Chakwas! It's what might be in your needles, your scalpels, your fucking lab coat! Do you know how easy it is to hide a microscopic recorder?" Nicole hissed. Chakwas backed away from her, plainly frightened, and Nicole tried to temper herself. "I'm sorry. I just can't take that risk for now. Use the scanner. At least ten inches from my face."

Chakwas's eyes softened, lines wrinkling at the corners. She held out the scanner, and kept it at least a foot away. Nicole tried not to squirm. She knew it was Chakwas—knew that, no matter what, Chakwas was only here because Cerberus had fooled her. As much as that Cerberus logo on Chakwas's chest burned in Nicole's mind, it was still the same woman. She couldn't trust the equipment or the room or the ship, but she could trust the woman. She had to believe that. Had to.

"Your cybernetics have become unstable beneath the scar," Chakwas said, frowning. "It's not severe, but any further trauma and I'm not quite sure what might happen. I doubt your health is in any danger but … I don't know, I'm not a technician. I don't know how these bloody things work but … please be careful, Nicole. There are those of us who worry about you from time to time." Chakwas tried to share a small, gentle smile. Nicole couldn't share it back.

"Thank you."

"Nicole—"

_"Docking with Omega, Commander."_ Joker's voice rang through the Med Bay. For a moment, Nicole could almost have forgotten that they were on a Cerberus vessel. But she couldn't. Perfect short-term recall. One of the things Shadowhill had done to her.

"I'll see you later, Dr. Chakwas. Thank you again."

Nicole turned to leave, but Chakwas stopped her. Not by touching her. Chakwas knew better than that. She had been one of the first to know.

"Nicole. The only reason I'm on this ship is currently walking out of my Med Bay. You have to believe that. I'm here for you. No one else."

Nicole looked back.

"I know. But Cerberus wouldn't have let you on this ship if they didn't think they could use you to control me."

And then she left.

XXX

Nicole's first impression of Omega was that it hung in space like some sort of stone jellyfish, its tentacles replaced with a single metallic spire jutting out of its base. Once, it had been a massive asteroid and mining colony. Now the asteroid was empty, its minerals mined, and the poor lived in the dusty, chalky catacombs within the rock. The richer lived on what was left of the mining platform, but no one was really rich here. Too much crime. Too much death. Too many petty warlords.

Though one of those petty warlords had managed to establish what very nearly resembled control sometime in the last two hundred years. Omega was still violent, dangerous, and diseased, but there was something like a government headed by Aria T'Loak, who the inhabitants called the Queen of Omega. Nicole wondered if that was what she called herself.

In the airlock, Nicole ignored Jacob and Miranda. Neither of them was wearing full armour, as she was; she thought that strange. As she was standing there, she realized the red N7 stripe was still blazoned on the right arm of her armour. In one fluid motion she drew the Talon from the back of her suit and started scraping the paint off. It was quick, but there were still broken streaks of red on the armour. Talons weren't meant as paint-peelers.

"Are you sure that's wise, Shepard? You're very well known as an N7, without the stripe people might not believe—" Miranda started, as flakes of paint dusted her shoes.

"That I'm me?" Nicole asked, stowing away the knife. Miranda didn't meet her eye.

"There's something I wanted to mention. The mercenary, Zaeed he'll be—"

"I know. I read the dossier, Miranda."

"Of course. And there's another thing, Aria T'Loak extends an invitation to Afterlife, the club from which she … operates. It would be unwise to refuse that invitation."

"I know that, too."

As they docked, Miranda finally fell into silence. It was an awkward, tense silence, but at least it was silence. Nicole's head was pounding, no doubt thanks in part to the fact that she'd just carved up her own face. It had been stupid. She knew that.

But now, when she saw her reflection, at least she knew what was looking back at her. The docking bay hissed open, and the first part of Omega that she saw was a long, nearly empty corridor. There was a man at the end with a scar as gruesome as Nicole's, on the same side of his face. He was kicking a batarian prisoner into the dirt.

"You'd be Shepard, then," the man grunted, driving the butt of a pistol into the man's neck. Nicole walked forward, but didn't take her eyes off of the man with the gun.

"Zaeed Massani."

Zaeed inclined his head. "Ma'am. Just have to take care of the scum here and I'm all yours."

"Not quite that easy," Nicole said, looking into Zaeed's eyes. He didn't so much as flinch. Didn't even have to keep up an act. "You founded the Blue Suns, right?"

This time, Zaeed flinched, old hatred plain on his face, making it ugly.

"_Founded_, yeah. Not exactly an active member anymore."

"I know. Why?" She'd expected Zaeed to regain his control, to realize what was happening, but it didn't look like he gave a damn what anyone thought of him. He was practically snarling, the scar on his face twisting with his mouth.

"My partner, Vido Santiago, wanted to start doing business with the batarians. The slavers. I didn't want any of it, and I got a nice little souvenir for my trouble." Zaeed gestured to the scar on his face, and the blind eye. Nicole nodded.

"All right. You can come aboard. After you've taken care of your little friend." Nicole gestured to the batarian prisoner with the slightest flicker of her upper lip. The batarian man, his lip burst and bleeding, limped towards her, reaching out with a hand. Nicole ignored him.

As Zaeed dragged the batarian away, Nicole watched dispassionately. Wondered what the batarian might have done. Wondered what Zaeed was going to do.

Decided she didn't care.

XXX

From outside the station you could be forgiven for thinking of it as a sad, quiet voyager through space, an old piece of space debris hollowed out and pierced by a great metallic spire. On the inside there was nothing quiet about it. When they left the small tunnel out of the docking bay, the streets opened up into wide, massive walkways filled with people of multitudinous races, walking at barely more than arm's length. Her eyes were drawn upward, to a massive, neon sign that said in simple, glowing characters: AFTERLIFE. The sign hung over a great cavernous entrance to a pair of large sliding doors, lines of people snaking away from them. In an altogether conspicuous way the club dominated the view out of the docking bay, though its wide open mouth narrowed to something much smaller at the entrance. Nicole understood this easily enough: everyone was meant to want to get in, but only a few actually did.

The lights on Omega were a dull red, lending a hellish glow to the streets, to the air. People were busy, always walking, the traffic centering around the entrance to the club. Nicole wondered if Afterlife had always been that way, a natural nexus for the wanderers aboard the Omega station, or if Aria had designed it to that specific purpose.

Either way, it felt like the gates of hell.

"Those lines are at least six hours long," Miranda observed carefully.

"Yes they are," Nicole said. "But we won't have to wait for them."

The moment they had left the airlock, a man had immediately left from a side-entrance to the club, from the corner of the massive walls that guided visitors down Afterlife's throat. He was a batarian, very old, and walking at a comfortable pace which told him that he was well in Aria's favour. He wasn't eager to please. Knew he didn't have to.

When he approached, the man offered a slight inclination of his head, and smiled pleasantly

"Commander Shepard. Aria will be very pleased to hear you've accepted her invitation."

"I was pleased to receive it," Nicole replied smoothly, observing as the man discreetly removed a small scanning unit from his back pocket. He held it up and grimaced apologetically.

"My apologies, but recent circumstances have made some precautions necessary. May I please perform a quick genetic scan?"

Nicole snorted. "Recent circumstances like my death, you mean?" The batarian didn't answer that. His scanner projected a thin blue line across Nicole's feet that travelled slowly, up her armour and then onto her face. The batarian nodded.

"Thank you for respecting our security protocols, Commander. If you'll just follow me."

The batarian led them into a discreet side-entrance which had looked exactly like a wall on the side of Afterlife before the batarian activated his omnitool. It slid away, and they walked through, and suddenly they were in the middle of the club. It was dark, and rather than flashing neon lights had faded red striplights along the floors, so that the ceilings were shrouded in darkness. There were plenty of people, but they were all dancing casually, easily, or else holding conversation at one of dozens of tables arranged along the outer walls.

There were asari dancers, but they stood on elevated platforms in a ring around a great main stage at the center of the club, revolving artfully on the spot. They wore dresses, but they were long and elaborate, night-black and slashed with streaks of orange that contoured their bodies as they moved. The dresses had two long slits, but the dancers moved so that only one leg at a time was visible, while their hands traced biotic patterns above their heads that left faded blue light in the air, like streamers. The amount of concentration it must have taken to maintain it all was extraordinary.

"I wonder if they have schools for that," Jacob mused appreciatively. Nicole was fairly certain she could _hear_ Miranda rolling her eyes.

"They do, actually," Nicole said, reflexively. "Takes years to be certified. None of those dancers have to worry about their credit chits."

"Yeah, I bet," Jacob said.

"Most places can only afford one. I count seven."

"Just this way, please," the batarian said, leading them away from the main stage and towards a set of stairs that led away from the bulk of the club.

"She doesn't operate out of that main stage?" Miranda wondered, gesturing towards the large, elevated platform surrounded by the ring of dancers.

"Young sharks swim with the guppies," Nicole said. "The old ones know that they don't have to. They know where the guppies swim ."

"Does that make us guppies?" Jacob joked.

"I don't know, do you feel like one?"

Down through the stairs they found themselves walking through a series of dimly light corridors with grated floors, barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. Single-file they followed the batarian onward, deeper into Afterlife, until the corridor split into three; they took the left-most corridor and continued down, passing by a turian guard carrying an assault rifle, with a large pistol strapped to his hip. The guard nodded at their batarian escort, but otherwise didn't say anything. As they went deeper, they encountered two more guards, both turian, both heavily armed and armoured.

The tunnel was long, and cramped, and heavily guarded. It would have been almost impossible to fight your way out of Aria's control. Nicole respected that. She also knew why Aria hadn't demanded that Nicole hand over her weapons. She didn't need to.

The entrance to Aria's parlour was just a door like any other, but as it opened they were bathed in cool blue light, such a shocking contrast from the rest of the club that even Nicole's eyes took a moment to adjust. The parlour was not massive, but very comfortable, a large circular room with an elevated bar at the back. Two of the asari dancers were leaning against the bar, drinking, talking quietly amongst themselves. At the perimeter of the room there were three turian guards, but these ones weren't wearing armour, only combat vests. Each of them only wore one weapon, a long, curved knife on their waist. A Talon.

_Each of them is a colonel. Or was one._ Including Nicole's pair, there were five Talons in this room. Probably more than there had ever been in any room not on Palaven.

Aria herself was sitting in the lower circle in the room, where a long couch circled the wall. She was lounging back, her legs crossed, her hands laid on one knee. Her skin was a dark purple, and she wore a simple white jacket and some black, skin-tight suit beneath that reflected light like latex but must have been much more comfortable. Her facial markings were more elaborate than most asari, on her forehead and cheeks and mouth. Nicole wondered if they had been surgically altered—if they had, the effect was remarkably convincing. As they entered, Aria smiled, and raised a single hand in an effortless gesture.

"Welcome. Please, sit." Aria gestured to the couch, looking patiently expectant. Nicole nodded and took a seat next to her. "I imagine you don't spend enough time sitting, Commander, with a physique like that." Aria held out her hand and the batarian who'd accompanied them fetched a wide glass from the bar, filled with some liquid so deep a purple it was nearly black. Aria took a sip, then handed the drink back to her man. He laid it back at the bar. "Drink?"

Nicole couldn't help but notice Aria was all but ignoring Jacob and Miranda, who were still waiting at the entrance. At a gesture from Aria, the both of them moved to take a seat next to Nicole. She felt the couch cushions shifting with their weight.

"No point for me," Nicole replied softly. "Metabolism burns it up." Aria nodded and smiled sympathetically.

"Chemically engineered resistance? Not as uncommon as you might think. I've known a lot of people who wished they could get drunk. Happens to us, you know, after eight hundred—body changes, enzymes, metabolisms, all that … eventually the body just stops processing alcohol altogether. Apparently it hurts like all hell the first time you—well, you know." Aria chuckled and cocked her eyebrows, like she was making fun of herself. "So I have that to look forward to, at least. Change only comes along every so often once you reach a certain age. So imagine my surprise when I find out that a ship calling itself the _Normandy_ stops by my corner of the galaxy."

"I imagine you take surprise well," Nicole replied. Aria smiled ingratiatingly.

"Well, at the very least I'm used to it. Even if it's been a while. And you … you I see as someone used to change. To, ah … little surprises." Aria held out her hand again, and took another short drink. "Your crew, for instance. I'm afraid I don't recognize Ms. Lawson or Mr. Taylor from anywhere other than my computer."

"They're Cerberus agents," Nicole replied easily. She heard Miranda start to move in her seat, but also heard Miranda stop abruptly. They both knew that Aria was only interested in speaking with Nicole.

"I heard your relationship with Cerberus was … not uncomplicated," Aria said diplomatically.

"You heard right. I'm not entirely sure what to think of my new friends."

Aria smiled, and this time, it stuck.

"Then it sounds to me like you could use some more friends. Some stable ones, I mean."

"I agree. But friendship can be hard for people like me."

"Oh, I know. I was a woman like you, once. When I was younger. When I didn't spend so much time reclining, having my drinks delivered to me," Aria said, reaching out her hand again. She took another drink. "What I wanted to ask was if there was anything you needed to make your stay on Omega more palatable. And before you protest, there's no … no fine print." Aria waved her hand as though she were dismissing an irksome fly. "No hidden agenda. I respect and admire you, Commander Shepard. I'd like it for that to be a two-way street. So first, let me be of service to you. Then you can decide if you want our friendship to continue."

"That's very generous."

"I'm capable of generosity, Commander, when I feel like I should be. And I think everyone in this room knows what you're capable of."

For the first time since Aria had started to speak, Nicole was aware of her surroundings. There was a subtle, easy command Aria had that seemed to suck up all the features of the world around her, like a black hole. The asari at the bar had stopped talking, and were watching them intently. The turian guards hadn't so much as shifted an inch. The batarian was lounging against the bar with Aria's drink, flicking through pages on a viewscreen projected from his omnitool. Jacob and Miranda were trying not to seem too out of their comfort zone. Strangely, Jacob was having more success. He'd folded his arms, and was humming under his breath. Miranda, meanwhile, was sitting erect, tense, attentive. Of course she was. She was used to working in Cerberus facilities, completely in command and control. Here, there was only one command. Only one control.

"You could do me a couple of discreet favours, actually," Nicole said. "A visor that would cover and obscure my eyes, preferably with some kind of holographic display. And a filtration and breathing mask for my lower face."

"You're going into the quarantine zone?" Aria asked. "The plague doesn't seem to affect humans yet. But that's smart. Dranak, you heard what the Commander asked for?" The batarian, at the bar, looked up and nodded. "Go see to that, please."

"Of course, ma'am." The batarian handed Aria her drink for the last time, and then went out a back door that hadn't at first looked like a door.

"So is that your first priority? The plague?" Aria asked, over her glass as she took a sip.

"No. My first priority is Garrus Vakarian. Archangel."

"I thought it would be. Mmm." Aria smiled as she finished the drink. "Even if you can't get drunk, you really should have had a drink. Good for the soul. At any rate, you'll be dealing with several mercenary gangs. Not a problem for you, I'm sure. They have a recruiter loitering around the docking bay, in the third shuttle section, not too far from here. That could be a good in for you."

"Thank you."

"I trust you'll be wanting to get to work as soon as possible?"

"Yes. I will."

"Of course. And then it's off to see Ms. T'Soni?"

Nicole didn't look from Aria's eyes. "Yes."

"She's a very influential information broker now, Commander. As I understand it she still talks about you. As though she knew you'd come back."

Nicole's hands clenched into fists.

"Well, I'm back. And I need to get to work."

"I look forward to hearing about it."

XXX

"Damn," Jacob swore, the moment they were back in the main dance floor of Afterlife. "That is a dangerous woman."

"I thought it went well," Nicole said in an offhand way. She was holding a black duffel bag that Aria had given her.

"Yeah? All I was thinking about was the fourteen kinds of dead we'd be if she decided she didn't like you."

"Well, you only live twice," Nicole muttered. "Stay here, I need to go take care of something."

"Take care of what?" Jacob asked, but Nicole ignored him. She walked to another of the corridors that led away from the main dance floor. At the end of the corridor there was only a black wall, but Nicole removed her glove and placed her thumb on the spot Aria indicated, and a door appeared in the wall. Nicole entered and shut it behind her.

She was in a private bathroom, all black with faded white lighting against the floors. She laid the duffel bag on flat surface next to the sink and unzipped it open. Inside she found a visor, cold black metal that would cover most of her eyes. She pulled it out and pulled it on, watching in the mirror as a red holographic display dropped down over her eyes, obscuring her upper face completely. Then she pulled out the breathing mask, which was pitch black and molded to her face. When she slipped it on, it was actually quite comfortable, with plenty of room around her mouth. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, her face had become a grim geometric study in black, metallic angles and blazing red light.

There was another item in the duffel bag, a small handheld device the size of a thumbnail. When Nicole picked it up, it projected a holographic view screen against one wall. Aria's face was there, smiling.

"Commander, I know you're going to do this anyway so I thought I'd save you the trouble. Activating this device has wiped any video record of your visit to this station until the activation of this scanner. Don't be a stranger."

The video fizzled out, and a faint smoking came from the small piece of metal. Nicole tossed it in a garbage can. She looked back into the mirror, at her face transformed by her improvised mask, her hair a fiery frame around her face. You could think it was Nicole Shepard beneath that mask. But you couldn't be sure. Red hair wasn't exactly uncommon. _Her_ colour of red, maybe … but it wasn't unheard of.

_I could be anybody. Any psychopath wearing armour, a mask, and half a dozen weapons,_ she reflected. The visor had given her a small heads-up display with a face recognition program, like a crude version of the one she had installed on her hardsuit helmet. It didn't recognize the reflection of her own face as a face, kept trying to zoom in and out. She looked away.

When she was back out in the club, she expected stares, but apparently the denizens of Afterlife were used to people in strange masks. She found Miranda and Jacob talking. The visor zoomed in on them and she found she was getting enhanced audio in her right ear, where the visor wrapped around the side of her head.

"I'm not surprised. She was woken up, thrown into the fire, and now she's been told one of her old war buddies is days away from getting turned into swiss cheese by a buncha mercs. I'd be in a bad mood, too."

"No, Jacob." Miranda sounded very impatient, and a little … was that uncertainty in her voice? It was hard to be sure. "I've studied her psych profile, I _know_ her—the Nicole Shepard I thought I knew would just deal with this. Figure out a plan and execute it. But she's unstable, and she's threatened to kill me at least four times already."

"You think she means that?" Jacob asked, sounding like he hadn't really considered the idea. Miranda took him by the arm.

"She does. She never threatens to kill someone if she's not ready to do it. My psychological profile of Nicole Shepard might have some glaring omissions but there is that much I'm sure of. She's ready to slaughter all the Cerberus crew aboard the _Normandy_ if she thinks she has to. We need to make sure she doesn't think she has to."

"Does she?" Jacob asked. Miranda just glared. Nicole decided it was time to step forward.

"All right," Nicole said. The mask didn't filter her voice, but there was a strange hissing sound whenever she breathed, ending on a mechanical click. "We're going. Time to see what you two are made of."


	4. Chapter 4: Archangel

"Who the hell are you?"

The batarian's voice was a deep snarl, a growl that spoke of some long-ago injury made visible in the scar on his neck. He had the kind of sneering, arrogant shrewdness that was bred over years on the streets of some run-down, festering world. Maybe even this one. The armour on his chest was branded with the logo of the Blue Suns.

Nicole had to fight a strong and overwhelming urge to drive her Talon through his eye.

"Try looking up the Red Dragon. Hit on Dahlia Dantius about two years ago." The breathing mask hissed and clicked as Nicole spoke. When Nicole mentioned Dahlia Dantius, the batarian's eyes widened, and he didn't even check his omnitool.

"That was you?"

"That was me."

"You sure you want to go in for this kinda crap? Just, uh, as professional courtesy," the batarian leaned in, "We're only recruiting cannon fodder. Maybe you can talk to Jaroth or Tarak or someone and get them to let you in on it. Can't say your friends will do well, though. No reputation in the business and all that."

"I understand." Nicole didn't look when the batarian gestured to her companions. Just kept staring straight at him, while her eyes were hidden by a hologram band, flickering like pale fire. "Will you take us on?"

The batarian hesitated for a moment, looking at Nicole. She knew what he was looking at. The sniper rifle on her back, the shotgun at her waist, the hand cannon on her hip. He knew she wasn't a freelancer. He was wondering what she wanted.

But she knew that men like this were simple. He got paid a fraction for each freelancer he brought in. He wouldn't bother to inquire too much.

"All right. Hop aboard the skycar, I'll take you to the job site."

XXX

The skycar was cramped, so Nicole got into the front seat while Jacob and Miranda shared the back. The batarian thrummed his fingers on the piloting stick in the center console as he drove, humming beneath his breath. The sprawling streets of Omega gave way beneath them as they moved through the large, hollow parts of the station.

"So we're working for the Blue Suns?" Nicole asked.

"Yeah, seeing as how I recruited you. But the Blood Pack and Eclipse are working on this one, too. This Archangel guy, he's a real prick."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, you should hear Garm talkin' about him—Blood Pack leader. Pretty sure he wants to stick the Archangel's head on a spike. Gotta admire a guy who goes in for the old ways."

"Yeah. You do." Nicole's mouthpiece hissed as she exhaled. They were travelling to a civilian district, one suspended high above several others, a miniature city of raised walkways and floating streets overlapping like wires on a suspension bridge. They approached from the sky, so Nicole could see the layout of the operation: the mercs had gathered around one crucial, long bridge, that fed into a smaller subsection and then into another bridge next to a housing complex. Up until that bridge, the mercs swarmed the place, but on the bridge there was no one. That must have been the spot Garrus was defending.

"Piece of shit district. Don't know why Archangel worked himself in a knot trying to defend it. Over some drug-running racket."

"Did the racket involve children?" Nicole asked, quiet as a ghost.

"Yeah, you know, vent-rats and the like. They make good carriers. And they don't think to ask for much." The batarian man chuckled as he lowered the skycar onto the far end of the bridge where the mercs were assembled, in a closed off garage. As they entered, the faded light of Omega was sealed away, and once more they descended into darkness. Pale blue strip lights illuminated the floor of the garage in uneven bursts, broken here or there where the old technology had failed. "All right, let's get you settled in. First you'll want to—"

"Wait." Nicole raised a hand, and the batarian stalled. "You've heard of me. How many people have?"

"Just about everyone, I guess. If it wasn't for that geth dropship popping its guts all over the Citadel your little stunt would've been the most exciting thing to happen on that station in years. People admire professionals. Especially professionals with style."

"That's what I am, is it?" Nicole murmured, her mask hissing. The batarian moved towards the door, but Nicole twitched her index finger, and he froze. "Wait. What is your name?"

"Droch."

"It's been a pleasure to meet you, Droch." In one abrupt movement she reached across the front seat and grabbed Droch by the throat, pulling him back towards her. He struggled and flailed and tried to get a hand on her face, but Nicole locked her arms around his neck and twisted. The batarian's neck _popped_ like a piece of bubble wrap, and his head fell into Nicole's lap, staring at the roof. Nicole pushed him off of her lap and back into the driver's seat.

"What'd he do?" Jacob said, a little too quickly. Nicole didn't look back at him.

"You heard him. He's hiring people to die. Young idiots who don't have a clue what they're doing. Who think they're going to collect a nice, easy paycheck while Droch's boss throws them to Garrus's sniper rifle. Only reason he told me is because he thinks I'm the Red Dragon." Nicole snorted, activating a program on her omnitool. The orange holo-screen flickered with strange symbols and lines of alien text.

"Shepard," Miranda said, sounding annoyed, "You _are_ the Red Dragon. Unless you're going to tell me someone else rappelled between two skyscrapers and slaughtered five people in the space of a minute."

"I guess I am." Nicole watched as a map flickered onto the viewscreen of her omnitool, with several locations appearing as bright blue dots. Apparently satisfied, she got out of the car. She looked back in, where Jacob and Miranda were sitting. "You may not want to come."

Miranda stared at her.

"I thought the plan was to infiltrate the mercenary groups and turn on them at the last moment? Surely three people will be—"

"No. The plan is to kill them all."

She slammed the car door shut. She walked to the exit of the garage and hacked into a terminal with her omni-tool, entering a code into the machine. Behind her she heard the skycar doors opening and closing, the clacking of boots against the filthy metal ground. Nicole patched herself into the main terminal, accessing the broadcasting system the mercs had set up. Every set of comms, every broadcasting unit, every airhorn. All of it wired through her omnitool.

"I'm speaking now to the freelancers. You geniuses who signed up because you thought this would be an easy job. Quick money." Nicole paused, and her mask hissed, like a snake. "If you put down your weapons, then you'll live. I know the mercs who hired you aren't about to give you their armour, so I'll know who's who. Which means if you're wearing Blue Suns, Eclipse, or Blood Pack armour, then you're all dead."

She cut the comms, and reached back in her mind. For an impulse she hadn't been born with. Like controlling a muscle that hadn't been there, a part of her that didn't exist, a sensation somewhere in the middle of her spine. It was disturbing how naturally it came to her. It felt like something was unfurling.

She activated her cloak. And then she disappeared.

XXX

At the center of the bridge, Aaron and the other freelancers were holding their weapons gingerly, as though they might start firing of their own accord. Sergeant Cathka had emerged from the workshop and was brandishing about his circuit trans-fitter, sparks spraying from the tool. None of the other freelancers looked very certain, and Aaron _definitely_ didn't feel certain. That voice that had blasted on all the comms had sounded _very_ certain: who the hell made that kind of threat? Aaron wished Cathka was showing a little more spine, but mostly he was just yelling and waving his repair tool about.

Then the ground thudded, and they all stood a little straighter. Garm had come out of the Commander's section, the hulking krogan warlord who led the Blood Pack, his armour fierce black and red. Each one of his steps sent shudders through the bridge beneath their feet. A massive assault rifle was slung across Garm's waist, but that rifle was nothing compared to the scowl with which he regarded the freelancers.

"Now, if I see one of you pups taking so much as a breaktime piss, I'm gonna ram your stinkin' weapons down your stinkin' throats. You understand me?"

Aaron knew what happened next must have been very fast, must have occurred in almost the blink of an eye. But it didn't. It couldn't have.

A woman appeared behind Garm, materializing slowly as though she were dissolving out of the air. Like him, her armour was all black, flecked with red along one arm. Aaron found himself noticing the little things: about a dozen grenades and pouches were slung around her torso, and the fabric of the armour beneath the metal plates was light and flexible. She was holding a dagger in either hand, long and curved, and sharp.

But the worst was the mask. Her face was reduced to a series of dark angles broken only by the dull red glow of the hologram in front of her eyes. Behind the mask you couldn't see any features. Just remorseless, glowing hate.

Aaron dropped his rifle. He wanted to run, but he couldn't. His legs were numb, frozen, and he couldn't look away. His brain had stopped obeying him.

In one leap she mounted Garm's back, her arms spread out like some horrible angel of death. There was almost a moment when Aaron was sure Garm would grab the woman and throw her from his back—but she was faster, and plunged the long tips of both daggers deep into his eyes. Blood leaked from Garm's ruined eye sockets as she held them there, her fists pressing against his skull. Then in one fluid motion, she withdrew the daggers, sheathed them, and drew her pistol. She stood atop Garm's hump and shot down, firing massive, explosive slugs into his skull, first one, then two, then three, until Garm's plate exploded and his brains spilled onto the floor. As Garm's body fell, the woman stayed atop it, unjostled. When he touched the ground, she vanished again in a crackle of electrical arcs.

"Shit! Open fire!" Someone screamed, and then there was a hail of bullets around him, and Aaron was ducking away, hiding behind a fallen bit of debris from a derelict YMIR mech. He leaned out to watch, trying to see if they'd shot her, if she had fallen, but he only saw the freelancers and merc soldiers, shooting in a panic while Cathka raged and ordered them to stand down. Jaroth had emerged from his command post, too, and a dozen eclipse mercs with him, with that huge YMIR Mech in tow—

Aaron saw her before anyone else. She flickered into being already crouched on top of the YMIR Mech, her omnitool glowing softly. He thought he should warn them, but just as he did, the heavy mech's right arms opened to reveal the concealed cannons beneath, pointing at Jaroth and his men. Aaron tried to cry out, but it was too late.

The mech opened fire. Bullets sprayed through the mercs, ripping through their armour, bursting through the backs of their heads, painting the ground with their blood. The woman wrapped one hand around the small, swivelling pivot of the YMIR Mech's neck, and in one effortless movement, ripped its head off. She jumped down from the mech, walking calmly, the torn camera-scope of a head dangling in her hand. It fell to the ground as one of the Eclipse mercenaries tried to stand, red blood smeared across his yellow and black armour. There was some fast motion, and the woman must have drawn her knife, because the Eclipse merc fell to the ground, grasping at his neck as it sprayed blood on his dead comrades.

Now Garm's vorcha had poured out onto the main bridge, from the side street they'd been festering in, but the woman drew a shotgun and started blasting them to pieces, one by one as they ran at her. Her aim was perfect, every time. When the few remaining vorcha fired back, she vanished into thin air again. Aaron found himself wondering if her blood was invisible, too. If they managed to land a lucky shot on the assassin, would they even know?

She reappeared amidst the vorcha, slashing out with a dagger in either hand, spurts of blood shooting from throats as she whirled through them. A couple of the freelancers were still holding their guns, facing her, their hands clamped around their weapons. The assassin raised her left hand, and her omnitool glowed. There was a soft beeping sound as she clicked a button.

Behind her, the headless Heavy Mech exploded in a violent torrent of flame and metal, roaring as it set the blood and flesh of the fallen Eclipse mercs on fire, until the flame rose like a curtain, and the assassin stood before it like a silhouette, daggers in either hand. The mech's corpse belched another plume of flame, and it grasped violently behind her, but she ignored it. Blood dripped from the daggers in her hands.

The other freelancers started to run. Aaron tried to get to his feet, found that his legs and arms and body were ignoring his silent pleas to flee. Slowly, horribly, that face turned to him, like the blackness of the sun during an eclipse, haloed in fire. She stared, and he couldn't know what she was thinking behind that mask, what she was going to do to him.

He found the strength in his legs, and he ran. He didn't dare to look back. Couldn't stand to look back at the fire.

XXX

Miranda was forced to create a biotic barrier to force a gap in the towering flame Shepard had left behind her; Jacob shrugged and thanked her, walking ahead with his shotgun drawn, as though Nicole had left anything alive. Already the metallic tang of blood filled the air, where it wasn't overpowered by the meaty smell of burning flesh. Miranda forced herself not to wrinkle her nose.

Shepard was standing at the front of the bridge, spinning each of her daggers in one artful arc around her index fingers. The blood whipped free of the blades, and she deposited them in the sheaths at her waist. She didn't even turn as Miranda and Jacob approached.

"Was that really necessary?" Miranda asked. She couldn't sound like she was condemning Shepard's actions out of—disgust, or petty morality. She had to be sure she was only questioning her technique. That was the only thing Shepard would care about. Shepard's head twitched slightly, looking at Miranda over her shoulder.

"Yes. I wanted them to die."

"Yes, but like _that_? Now the rest of them, all of them who weren't on this bridge, they'll know you're trying to kill them! Would a little patience have cost you anything?"

"They're not a threat to me. Just to everyone else. The Blue Suns like to use kids as drug runners, Droch said it himself. The Blood Pack hunt the poor for sport. The Eclipse don't bother using kids as drug runners. They recruit teenagers, get them addicted, raise them young. I'm going to kill every one of them. Does that bother you?" Nicole asked. Miranda made sure her tone was even when she replied.

"No. But I would have appreciated being in on the plan."

"When you need to be in on the plan, you'll be in on it." Shepard's mask gave one final, prolonged hiss as she spoke.

"Shepard—" But Shepard had already turned her back to her, her meaning clear. Nothing Miranda could say or do would affect what she was going to do in any way. She had expected this, especially since Shepard had been woken so irregularly. But somehow, she had thought Shepard would come around once she'd woken up, that she'd take things as normal. But she wasn't. Miranda had read Nicole Shepard's entire service history so many times she could recite parts of it. And this, this quiet refusal to co-operate, this silent rage, was an old behavioural profile of Shepard's. It hadn't manifested in a long time. Not since the last time her world had fallen apart.

Not since Akuze.

XXX

Garrus had been watching these cameras for what felt like his entire life. The screens had started to blur together, the image of one mercenary blending into the next. But he had to stay alert, so he kept guzzling the home-brewed energy drinks he'd stored in a small, battered old cooler. It was the same cooler he and his men had used.

Back when they'd still been alive.

The access path to the apartment he was hiding in was on another bridge, suspended to the side of the main bridge where the mercs had gathered. They'd erected a barricade at the entrance to keep Garrus from killing their men the moment they were in view. Not that their new solution was much better. Now they had to climb over. It was almost as though they were sending men at him to die. It tore at his gut when he saw them, clambering over the barricades, half of them not even wearing a helmet … since he'd been working in Omega, he'd modified his Viper for a higher yield. Now, the moment he saw their heads, he pulled the trigger. And there was nothing left but a violent red cloud where someone's skull had once been.

But they hadn't sent anyone for a while, now. He wondered if that was their strategy. Give him enough time to rest that his eyes would slide shut, that he'd fail to realize he was sleeping … and then they could walk up and kill him.

He had alarms, of course. A bunch of holographic tripwires, linked to an alarm in his visor. But he couldn't afford to wait. Right now, the mercs were busy trying to kill him. They weren't extorting civilians, or raping them, or killing them because they weren't paid up. There was no one to stop them. As long as no one stepped on Aria's toes, no one gave a damn what happened to anyone on Omega.

_No one but me._

He was only waiting now, hoping to hold out as long as he could. Tarak would be back soon, with that attack chopper he had been talking about on the Blue Suns comms … when that happened, Garrus wouldn't be able to keep them back. He knew that now. Knew his death was coming. But that was all right. He hadn't expected to be the last to die. First it had been Kaidan, then Shepard, then his entire squad … and now here he was. Facing his death. He almost didn't mind.

He just wanted to take as many of them with him as he could. As he was looking down his scope again, jostling it against his cheek to keep himself awake, all of his scanners suddenly spiked with static. Someone was tapping into the comms signals—_all_ of the comms signals.

"I'm speaking now to the freelancers. You geniuses who signed up because you thought this would be an easy job. Quick money." It was a woman's voice, slow, clear, frighteningly calm. Whenever she breathed, the sound was amplified into a long hiss, with a click at the end, as though there were something obstructing her voice. "If you put down your weapons, then you'll live. I know the mercs who hired you aren't about to give you their armour, so I'll know who's who. Which means if you're wearing Blue Suns, Eclipse, or Blood Pack armour … then you're all dead."

Garrus froze. He recognized that voice. It belonged to a ghost.

_Shepard. No, it can't be._

Hurriedly, he switched all the readouts on the console beneath the windowsill he'd been leaning out of, so that he could see onto the mercs' compound. They were yelling, scattering, one of the Blue Suns lieutenants was waving his hands around. There was Garm … that bastard that Garrus had failed to kill. For one absurd moment Garrus wanted to point his sniper rifle at the viewscreen, as though he were looking at Garm through his scope. He glared at that krogan skull, wishing Garm would have the guts to come up here alone.

And then, behind him, a woman appeared, crouched like some predator, with two daggers in her hand. Electricity crackled and arced along her armour, jet black save for a few uneven streaks of red along her right arm. Garrus froze. No, it couldn't have been—

But the daggers she was holding were Talons. Two Talons. He didn't know of any other human who had those kinds of weapons.

"_Spirits._" She was alive. She had to be.

Then he watched, first in jubilation, then in awe. She killed Garm first, carving out his eyes with her Talons before she blasted his skull open, as methodically as if she were a doctor treating a wound. The rest of them she tore through like butter, as though they weren't even there. Before they even fired their guns she was already out of their way. She flitted in and out of vision like a spirit, reappearing only with her knives already arcing towards a mercenary's neck, carving the air with blood.

He was almost unsurprised when she destroyed the YMIR Mech. When she used it to mow down the Eclipse forces like butter. He watched as another man and woman joined her, and hissed a sharp intake of breath in surprise: they were Cerberus, the logos brazen on their clothing. That didn't make any sense; he knew Nicole, had watched her slaughter Cerberus scientists in a frenzy nearly as vicious as her most recent one. As she left, Garrus realized she was coming towards his bridge, and he raised his sniper scope to look down, waiting for her. He saw her climbing over the barrier effortlessly, in one easy, uncoiling movement. She landed with easy grace, and looked across his bridge. Directly at him, with his sniper rifle. She was wearing a mask that made it impossible to see her face, but the hair was right, as well as the armour, and her build. But most convincing of all had been her skill. It had to be her.

But _how_?

As Shepard walked forward, she stowed both of her knives. She was calm, unconcerned. Behind her, the man and woman in the Cerberus outfits were following her. The man looked apprehensive, particularly once he saw Garrus in his sniper's perch, but there was a much stranger look on the woman's face. Was she worried? Garrus wasn't sure. Subtle human expressions were still a mystery to him.

He heard them walking up the stairs to the level he was on, and he forced himself to his feet. The sudden movement made his head swim, so he quickly leaned against the chair he'd been sitting in for the past sixteen hours. He was painfully aware that his body was protesting the long hours of activity, that he was nearing delirium from sleep deprivation. When the woman walked up the stairs, he didn't believe she was Nicole, not at first. He didn't trust his senses. But then she de-activated the hologram on her visor, and took off her mask.

It was her.

"_Shepard_?" Garrus rasped. "Shepard, you're … _how_?"

Nicole didn't respond for a long time, her face as responsive as her mask had been. Then she looked just slightly to the left, over her shoulder, where the other humans were standing.

"Cerberus. They brought me back. I guess they think I'm valuable."

"Well they were bound to be right about something," Garrus said, unable to suppress a smile. Her face was the first good thing he'd seen in what felt like a lifetime. "I can't believe it's you."

"I'm not sure it is me, yet. Cerberus has given me a ship, and a crew. Joker's involved, and Chakwas. I don't know how deep."

"Shepard—" the woman started, but Nicole held up a hand.

"Don't talk to him." The sudden, abrupt shift in Nicole's tone was frightening. He thought she had sounded cold when she'd been talking to _him_; her words to the woman were withering. Nicole turned back to Garrus. "I need someone I can trust, Garrus. Someone who hasn't been involved with them from the start. I need you."

"Then I'm yours, Shepard. No questions asked. But they're not done with me yet. There's this batarian, Tarak, leading the Blue Suns—"

"I know. He's working on a combat chopper that he's going to use to siege this place."

"Do you know how long it'll take him to get here?" Garrus asked, trying to hide how heavy his breathing was. It was a struggle to keep his focus on Nicole's face, especially since, as far as he could tell, her face wasn't changing. Not so much as a smile.

"According to the files I ripped from the Blue Suns' omnitools? Something like two hours. Get some rest, Garrus. You're going to need it."

Garrus felt like he should protest, but he was already lowering himself into his chair, his head rolling to his side. The last thing he saw was Shepard's face. It still seemed so unreal. Could she really be alive? Could she really have come back? None of the others did. None of the others ever had….

XXX

"How long do you think he's been awake?" Jacob asked, idly lifting the lid of Garrus's cooler, wrinkling his nose at the half dozen empty canisters that dripped some purplish liquid. "Ugh. Dextro-amino stuff stinks."

"He's been awake for forty-seven hours," Nicole whispered, as she tapped her omnitool into Garrus's surveillance system. "At my best guess. Don't touch any of his equipment." Miranda had been about to scan Garrus's sniper rifle.

"I wanted to check it was still functional. He's been up here alone for a long time, you said it. We need to be ready for Tarak to come. I doubt he'll be pleased to see you, after what you did to his troops."

"I'm not going to be very pleased to see him, either," Nicole muttered. She re-activated the hologram on her visor and re-affixed her mask. "When Tarak comes, you can start earning my trust by protecting Garrus. Let me kill Tarak and take out the chopper. You two just keep him safe with barriers and provide firing support if they try to take the balcony down there."

"All right," Miranda said, surprising her. She'd expected some sort of protest. "You're the Commander, after all."

"There's an interesting question. Does a post-mortem rank still count if you come back from the dead?" Nicole mused. She'd been joking, but judging from the look on her face, Miranda wasn't aware.

"I'm sure you can be reinstated—"

"I don't want to be. Not while I'm on your ship. Just get ready and keep watch."

Miranda pursed her lips, but wisely turned to the balcony without saying anything else. Jacob, apparently at a loss, did the same. As they waited, Nicole looked at Garrus's feeds. She wondered if he'd tapped into pre-existing cameras or if he'd set them all up himself. With the absence of anything to keep herself busy, she started looking up the records of the Archangel. Apparently he'd showed up about a year ago, stomping out small criminal gangs and mobs in the sub districts. That had been smart of him. He hadn't targeted anyone big enough to be working for Aria.

But then … he had started gaining followers. Accomplices. The people had started talking about him. There were at least a hundred blog posts about him and his gang, and soon they had started taking on the bigger groups, including the Eclipse and the Blood Pack. Apparently Garrus had started targeting gang leaders himself. She couldn't help but look at him, sleeping in what looked like peace. But it was just exhaustion.

Then she found the most recent pieces of news. The Archangel's squad, nearly wiped out. Gang leaders bragging about how they were going to take out the Archangel himself. Tarak, apparently, had had multiple run-ins with Garrus and had personally organized the hunt for Archangel. He was a batarian. One of those twisted creatures who had escaped from the Hegemony, but still liked to practice their traditions. Like slaving.

She was going to find it very easy to kill this man.

She needed to distract herself with something. Anything. Staying still too long meant thinking. And there weren't many good things for her to think about right now. So she started to take in the features of the apartment Garrus had holed himself up in. They were in the back, in what had once been the main bedroom; Nicole could tell by faded marks on the floor that a bed had been removed from one wall. Garrus had kept the chair, but he'd pushed the bookshelves against all the windows but one, the one that had the full view of the bridge below. There was a kitchen attached to the bedroom, and on the other side of that there was a long living room area filled with couches and windows. Garrus hadn't bothered boarding those up, since the access didn't come directly into his hiding spot.

She knew what he'd done here. Made an excellent defense, crafted a great sniper's roost where he could gun down the mercs who fumbled over their barricades. It was the perfect point to defend, as long as you wanted to die. He never could have held out here indefinitely. There was no escape route, no way for him to get out and fight another day. Only death.

"Shepard." It was Miranda again. Nicole tried to acknowledge that woman's existence as little as she could. It almost didn't matter that she was Cerberus. Just the thought that this woman had been inside her, had rebuilt her, was too much. At least Miranda had stopped trying to be her friend. At least she'd realized that wouldn't be possible. "There's still time. We could pull out and get out of here before Tarak ever arrived."

"And if he arrived while we were making our way across all those bridges?" Nicole asked, her eyes still on Garrus's resting form.

"You think we'd fail to notice a big bloody gunship as it approached the bridge?"

"I don't think it would matter if we noticed. He could just set the entire bridge on fire. Besides, it doesn't matter." She could hear something, at the edge of her senses, a rhythmic thumping sound like deep bass. She wondered how much Miranda had enhanced her hearing, too. "Tarak's already here."

"What? How can you—you can hear it?"

"Yeah. Very faintly. Should be on the sensors soon. Look," Nicole pointed to Garrus's array of viewscreens, suddenly emitting faint beeps. "There he is. Garrus! It's time."

But Garrus was already up, reaching into his cooler automatically. He tossed aside a few of the empty canisters before he grabbed a full one and drank it in one long, painful looking gulp. Purple liquid dripped down his mandibles and he wiped it away.

"All right," Garrus gasped, barely sounding awake. "All right."

_"Archangel!" _The voice rang through the air, as though it were surrounding them. _"You think you and your friend can stop the Blue Suns?! My men are already surrounding your little hidey hole. And you know what? I kind of hope they don't kill you. Because I can't wait to do it myself."_

"Garrus, there were doors downstairs that you'd sealed up. Is it possible they've found a way to break through?"

"Yeah, it's possible … they'd have to get to the basement of the entire apartment complex and reboot the systems, but—" A mournful humming sound filled the room as the lights dulled and all of Garrus's equipment flickered. In the dim light, Garrus grimaced. "Well, that'd be them rebooting the system. Now the only lock on that door is the standard one, and—"

"Yeah. You three, stay up here and watch the bridge. I'll go down and kill anyone coming in through the back."

"Shepard, you need back-up," Jacob said, very reasonably.

"No I don't. That's why you brought me back, remember?" Nicole unslung her shotgun and went down the stairs, positioning herself behind a structural support so that she could see the entrance. The doubt and confusion in her mind faded away. This was just killing. This was easy. This was what she had been made for.

The holographic symbol on the door turned from red to green. Seven soldiers poured through, rapidly, four batarians, two turians, and a salarian. The guns were all Avenger assault rifles, and the men and women holding them were all bluster and bravado, arrogantly charging through the entrance without so much as checking their corners.

"Hey, Archangel!" The leader, a turian woman, had a high, sneering voice that cut into Nicole's ears. "Think Tarak will forgive me if I'm the one who turns you to pulp?"

Nicole stepped out from behind the pillar. There was a moment where they stared at her, sizing her up, unable to match an unfamiliar face with a name. But she saw the light go off in the leader's eyes. Tarak must have warned her about the assassin who had killed all the other mercenaries. Must have warned her she might be there.

Nicole saw the moment pass in the turian's eyes, saw her lips moving, heard the beginning of a yell in her throat. And again, feeling as though she were unfurling some hidden limb in her back, she activated her cloak. The leader completed her order, her throat not catching up to what her eyes had seen. And then all seven opened fire.

Nicole rolled down onto the ground behind another pillar, and they fired blindly into the air, partly out of bravado, partly because they'd heard the panic in their commander's voice. The grunts hadn't been informed yet. They didn't know what was going to happen to them.

Still under her cloak, Nicole pulled out her pistol, leaned out from cover, and shot one of the batarians in the face, his skull exploding as blood traced a splash like an artful painting of a claw on the wall behind him. The mercs froze for a moment, then swung all their guns towards her and opened fire again, but Nicole had disappeared and leapt to the far side of the room, to behind the pillar she'd first been hiding against. She was keeping count of the time they spent firing. They were getting close. Very close. They were all shooting together, almost in unison. That was convenient.

"What the fuck is she?" One of the batarians screamed. Nicole leaned out from behind the pillar again, and they fired at her in startled spurts, scared. She rolled forward, not bothering to re-activate her cloak, diving beneath their line of fire. When she was in front of the batarian who screamed, there was an audible click coming from each of the mercenaries' guns.

Their weapons had overheated.

In one motion she drew her daggers and ripped open the first batarian's throat, then kicked out the legs of the salarian next to him and pinned his body to the ground with her dagger, striking at his heart. The closest person was the leader. She, unlike the others, had conserved her ammunition, was raising her rifle to aim at Nicole's head, to stop her, to put her down.

But Nicole was faster. She launched herself from the ground and knocked the turian's assault rifle out of her hands, and for one moment she could almost see the woman's face perfectly, as though she had been captured in a still frame. All that arrogance, all that sneering confidence had dissolved away, and in its place there was only stricken animal terror. She was panicking, her mind fracturing as her long assumption that she was immortal was met with sudden reality. She knew that moment of panic made her weak. An easy target. The tapered curve of her Talon found its way into the woman's throat as though it was meant to be there. By the time she fell to the floor, her other men had started running. Nicole calmly drew her shotgun and shot them all.

"Targets eliminated."

Miranda started to respond on the comms, but her voice was swallowed by the sound of a roaring explosion. Immediately Nicole spun around and vaulted up the stairs, skipping them three at a time. When she rolled up onto the main area, she saw Garrus, pinned behind a couch, while Miranda and Jacob were further back. The gunship was hanging in front of the far window, suppressing them all with machine gun fire. Nicole let her shotgun fall to the floor and drew her sniper rifle in one motion, pointing it directly at the cockpit. She could see the pilot's face. A batarian face.

"High-ex!" She yelled, and a ratcheting clicking noise in her rifle confirmed the weapon had responded. She pulled the trigger, felt the explosive impact against her shoulder as her rifle fired, watched the explosive round arc through the air—

But the chopper was already turning through the air, and the round blazed past and collided with a building on the far side of the apartment, reducing it to rubble. Nicole's heart stopped. It had been an apartment complex.

_No. No._ Feverishly, she ducked behind cover and brought up her omnitool, setting it to scan the area. The apartment complex had been abandoned four days ago when the gang war had started. She let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding, and quickly grabbed her sniper rifle again, getting out from behind her cover. The chopper had pulled away, out of view, and now Garrus was standing, searching the skyline.

"Tarak! Where are you, you coward?!"

_He's delirious. He doesn't know what he's doing._

"Garrus, get down!"

Nicole saw it happening before it did. She knew the chopper would re-appear at the right window, because the driver was batarian and batarians had an almost universal right-side bias. She knew the batarian wouldn't bother with his mini-guns when his prize was so exposed. And she knew Garrus's shields were completely drained, that he hadn't bothered to check them since he'd been up here.

The rocket flew through the window, and Nicole realized she was running, not away from it, but _towards_ it, as though she could stop it. As though there were anything she could do in the face of a short-range missile.

There wasn't. The rocket hit Garrus's body and flung him like a rag doll, tearing the right side of his body open in a torrent of shredded blue body armour and metallic turian flesh. Garrus fell.

"Help him! Help him, keep him alive!" Nicole screamed, as she ran past Miranda and Jacob. She knew the batarian was pulling away, looking to make good his escape. He'd killed the Archangel. No one could survive an explosion to the face.

Nicole forgot the facts and leapt through the window, soaring through the air towards the chopper. He tried to veer away from her, but Nicole grabbed onto the wing, her grip like a vice. The chopper didn't have any rotating guns, so Tarak had nothing to kill her with. Nothing but the wind. The batarian sent the vehicle into a tailspin towards the bridge, the wind whipping around like a hurricane, viciously tearing at Nicole's body, unflinching forces of nature trying to pull her from the craft.

But she held on. They'd made her stronger than a force of nature. She pulled herself along the aft wing, so that she was next to the ballistic glass cockpit, staring into Tarak's unbelieving face. Too late, he reached for his pistol. Nicole reached for the glass, balled a fist, and struck forward with all the strength in her body. The glass shattered immediately, the entire side pane of the cockpit exploding at the force of the impact, glass shearing into Tarak's unprotected face. She reached him and grabbed him, wrenching him out of his restraints, and leapt back from the chopper with her throat around his neck.

They landed on the bridge, the chopper plummeting away behind them. Far away, there was a terrible crashing sound, metal ricocheting and fuel exploding and fire spewing and swallowing and consuming. Tarak had landed hard on the bridge and was clutching at his side, leaning against one of the corpses of a Blood Pack vorcha Nicole had slaughtered. He was spluttering something beneath his breath.

Nicole got down on one knee and punched him across the jaw.

"Shut up!"

"Fuck y-you!" Tarak spat, choking on a mouthful of blood. Nicole's teeth were clenched together so tightly she was surprised they weren't breaking, and her blood had become like fire roaring in her ears. She grabbed his skull in her hands, her finger squeezing into his flesh.

"You don't get to talk," she spat. She memorized every detail of his face. Every last, stinking inch. The ugly, moulded folds of flesh on his cheeks, and above his eyes. The stupid gang markings on his forehead. The blood and broken teeth dribbling down his jaw. She activated her comms. "Chakwas, you're going to come to my location. Garrus and Jacob are going to meet you on the way if they can. Garrus is very seriously hurt and Miranda and Jacob aren't going to be able to do enough to get him stable. Hurry." She paused. "If anyone on that ship heeds your progress in any way, tell them I'm going to kill them."

She closed the comms. Didn't let Chakwas respond. She already knew what she had to say.

Tarak was whimpering, dribbling, bleeding all over her. She knew he was wondering how much defiance would cost him. Could feel his courage rising, could see his hands twitching towards his weapon. His left hand moved towards the pistol at his side. But Nicole was quicker. Calmly, dispassionately, she moved one thumb from Tarak's cheek and placed it on his eye.

"Each time you make me angry," Nicole whispered, "You lose an eye. And you've already made me angry, so—" She pressed her thumb in, the strange, gelatinous texture of Tarak's eye immediately giving way and _popping_, blood spurting from his face as his entire body responded, flailing uselessly, his hands bouncing off of Nicole's armour, his screams high and shrill. "That's one. And you told me to fuck myself. So that's two … lucky batarians have four eyes."

He screamed until the anger bled out of him, until there was nothing but fear, and then there was nothing left beyond that but animal pain. He was less than a batarian, much less than human, now. He scrambled and flailed and wept and snarled, but there was nothing he could do. He screamed and cried until he passed out in Nicole's hands. He still had two eyes left.

She took out a packet of medigel from one of the pockets on her armour and started making small, careful applications. She didn't know if Garrus had survived. But Tarak was going to.

For a little while longer, anyway.

She re-activated her comms. Dialed a new number.

"Aria. It's the Dragon. I need another favour."

_"Of course."_

"I need a dark room and limited medical supplies. Also a list of names of skilled cybernetic surgeons on Omega." Nicole checked Tarak's vitals. He was very weak. But alive.

_"Done. But you know—cybernetic surgeons are very rare. As far as I know there's only one on Omega._ _I think you already know his name."_

"Mordin Solus." Nicole looked at Tarak's face, at the face she'd memorized. His face was covered in blood, only clean in streaks where she had wiped the blood away. "You had better hope Garrus survives, Tarak. Because it will take a very long time for you to die."


	5. Chapter 5: Dr Solus

His breathing was so slow. A ragged, tortured gasp that gurgled each time e inhaled. The room was dark and quiet, only penetrated by the painful sound of his breathing. He was strapped to a chair, Nicole knew that. She had been the one to strap him there. As much to keep him from hurting himself as anyone else.

"Can you hear me, Tarak?" A louder, more painful grown. "Shh. Don't try to speak. Here's what's going to happen. My friend is on board my ship right now, in the med-bay. The doctor there, a woman I trust, is doing everything she can to save him. But I need to find a cybernetics surgeon, and luckily there's one here on this station. When I find that doctor and I get him to my friend, and when my friend survives, I'm going to kill you. Quickly."

Nicole paused, let him soak that in. His brain was oxygen-deprived, processing slowly. It would take him a few moments to catch up to her.

"But _if _my friend doesn't make it … for every moment of pain he suffers, I will make sure you feel it. And it will go on, as long as I am able to keep it going. I'm very good at keeping it going. So pray my friend lives, Tarak. Pray for the Archangel." Her chair creaked as she leaned forward, breaking the sound of Tarak's ruined breathing. "Because if he dies, I will make you pray for your own death."

She got up and left him in there, wheezing. As she closed the door behind him, she thought she heard him start to cry.

X

"Why'd she go back to Aria?" Jacob wondered. They were standing outside the club Afterlife, waiting for Shepard to emerge, trying to ignore the teeming, pulsing crowd shoving its way towards the entrance. Miranda was checking her omnitool every few moments for an update on Garrus's condition. If Garrus died now, there was no telling what Shepard would do.

_Probably something extremely violent._

"Because she doesn't trust us. I'm assuming she wants private time with her friend in there. The batarian."

"Goddamn. I didn't think she was that kind of person."

"Normally? I don't know if she is. But right now she's … regressing. What Shadowhill did to her—it was programming, Jacob, it replaced a lot of her baseline behaviours. Take away her self-control, her sense of identity … and there are some very scary things underneath." Miranda checked Garrus's vitals again. He was stable. Relatively.

"Ain't that the truth," Jacob muttered. "Miranda, look, I know you want to play it cool with her, but someone needs to be able to tell her where the line is."

"You're welcome to try," Miranda replied dryly.

"Speaking of trying, couldn't you have performed cybernetic surgery on Garrus? I thought—"

"Jacob, I performed a comprehensive physiological overhaul on a dead body, with four surgeons at my command. Cybernetic surgery on a living being is without exception the most difficult and complex medical practice we know of. Frankly we're lucky Dr. Solus is operating out of Omega. He's one of maybe a hundred people in the galaxy who might be able to create a permanent solution for Garrus."

"And if he doesn't?"

Miranda, finally, looked up from her omnitool. Jacob wasn't a simple man, but he was a straightforward one—she could see him trying to find the right answer, the honest thing to do. Miranda didn't know if there was one for him to find any more.

"Well. If we're lucky she'll take it out on the Collectors."

The doors to Afterlife slid open, and the crowd around them started to throb, but stopped immediately as two very large batarians walked out, flanking an asari in Commando armour. Each of them had a rifle slung over their back, but if Miranda was any guess, the asari didn't need it. There was a strange thing that happened when one powerful biotic was in the presence of another a sort of tingling at the edge of the senses, as though biotic fields were already curling in the air. It required both someone powerful enough to be noticed, and someone powerful enough to notice. Right now, Miranda was noticing. The asari had red facial markings in straightforward, angular patterns, that made her look very intimidating.

"You two." The asari pointed a finger at them. "Aria wants you." Jacob exchanged a dubious look with Miranda, but they both knew they had no choice to refuse. Miranda tried to hold her head high as she accepted the asari's command, preferring to treat it as an invitation. She was one of the most powerful members of one of the most powerful organizations in the galaxy—she wasn't going to be bossed around by a glorified street thug.

_A glorified street thug with biotics that could rip a krogan in half, _Miranda admitted to herself. Again the asari led them through the club floor—Miranda couldn't resist glancing at the asari dancers, so perfect was the form of their craft—and took them down the long, dark passage towards Aria's lounge. Just as before, Miranda felt like a rat being lowered into a trap, and it made her rankle. She couldn't help but think: was Shepard really so desperate for allies that _this_ was the sort of woman she'd turn to?

` And indeed, when the doors to Aria's chambers opened, Shepard was sitting in a chair opposite Aria, apparently concluding some discussion. At least she wasn't wearing that ghastly mask. Shepard didn't so much as incline her head when they walked in, but Aria at least favoured them with the slightest nod.

"Your companions are here," Aria said, drawling easily. She was drinking something else from a glass now, some clear liquid. She must have had the gut for the stuff. Nicole glanced at them, expressionless evaluation lurking behind her eyes. What was frightening was that there was nothing else. No anger, no regret, no … anything. Miranda knew Nicole's psych profile better than anyone, and she knew that whatever personality she'd attained in all those years away from Shadowhill, whatever parts of her humanity she'd regained—they were buried. It was easier that way.

"Miranda, Jacob. You're going to go back to the _Normandy_ and prepare the lab facilities for Dr. Solus. You're going to make sure it is perfect for Dr. Solus. Understand?"

"So that he wants to stay," Miranda surmised.

"Yes. I'll need him."

"First you'll have to convince him to leave his clinic," Aria said lightly.

"I think I know how to do that. I'll help him with his problem."

"What problem is that?" Miranda asked, hoping that she sounded innocently curious rather than silently infuriated. Being delegated to rudimentary tasks like this was more than a waste of her talents, it was an insult. She knew _why_ Shepard was behaving this way. But that didn't mean she liked it.

"There's a gang of vorcha who've become convinced that the plague is their ticket to controlling the stadium. So they're preventing the dispersal of a cure. I'm going to kill them."

"Well, that's simple," Jacob said, apparently trying to joke. Aria favoured him with what might have been half a smile.

"The best plans are," Aria said. "I hope it goes without saying you all have an open invitation into my confidences if you should ever need it. And, Commander Shepard, I assume you'll need to finish your business in room fifty-two D?"

"Once I've retrieved Dr. Solus," Nicole said.

"Of course."

"Thank you for your friendship, Aria. I hope to return the favour one day." Nicole had already dropped the hologram on her mask down, and started affixing the breathing mask to her face. Somehow that was less frightening than seeing Shepard's face, half-hidden in the shadows of Aria's den.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll get the chance."

XXX

"I still don't think you should go alone," Miranda was saying. Nicole was checking the output of her breather mask on her omnitool, making sure it was sealed. "You could use back-up, and—"

"You know my psych profile. You know I don't need back-up. What I need is for you to get back to the _Normandy_, and to get that lab ready. You know how you were supposed to wake me up in an environment tailored to put me at ease so you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now?"

Miranda's face betrayed only the slightest hint of irritation. "Yes."

"Do that for me now and I might reconsider my evaluation of your usefulness. Do you really think I need a pair of biotics to slaughter some vorcha?"

"No."

"That's right. So go."

Miranda left, Jacob following at her heel looking more than a little bit like a lost dog. Nicole put them both out of her mind. Aria had told her the way to the quarantine zone, and sent a message ahead to her guards that the Red Dragon was free to come and go as she pleased. Nicole was hearing that name too often, but it would be easier to convince people that an assassin from the Citadel had resurfaced than that Commander Shepard had come back from the dead. As she walked through the streets of Omega, she felt the crowds parting around her, giving her space. Plenty of people on Omega were armed, but few were armed as heavily as her. And Nicole knew, there was a way to carry yourself that scared people. A certain fluid, ceaseless grace, like a shark cutting through water.

There were so many batarians. There was even one raving atop a platform about the human polluters who had surely spread the plague. She remembered how the batarians had slaughtered her brother because it was quicker to burn him than to put a collar on him. Nicole realized she had stopped walking, that she was staring at the batarian. He was screaming something, saying how she was filth. That she was only fit for chains. A crowd was around him, watching, listening. The batarian had said something, had sneered at her. Deep inside herself she could feel something horrible twisting, turning inside her, screaming to kill that man.

But it froze inside her. She remembered all the years she'd spent, not being able to sleep, having her face shoved in buckets of salt water, being sprayed with hot and cold water. This man wasn't anything compared to that. He wasn't anything to her. Just another bag of flesh. Not one of the ones she had to eliminate. And he wasn't a serious threat.

So she ignored him.

Near the quarantine zone access door, Aria had posted several turian guards, who looked very bored but who were also all carrying assault rifles. When the guard at the head of the group saw Nicole, he nodded and motioned for the door behind him to be opened.

"Not sure you'll need that thing. Plague doesn't affect humans," the guard said pleasantly. Nicole didn't respond. "Well, better safe than sorry, I guess."

"Wait!" Another voice, human female, behind her and to the right. Nicole heard the woman running forward, heard the panting in her breath. "You're letting people in, now?"

"I'm letting her in," The turian guard said evenly. "Doesn't mean I'm letting you in."

"Please, I need to—the plague doesn't even affect humans!"

"Yeah, but bullets do. I let you in there you're going to come out resembling grated _turloch_."

"Let her in," Nicole said. "She can follow me."

The turian looked between her, a frown marring his face—when turians frowned, their mandibles tightened to their sides. He shrugged, apparently deciding he wanted to argue with the Red Dragon less than he wanted to enforce some rule.

"All right. Just don't say I didn't warn you."

The guard got out of her way and let them through, the woman pattering rapidly in Nicole's wake. Nicole knew without looking that she must have been short from the length of her strides.

"Thank you so much! I was so worried that I'd never be able to get back in!"

Nicole continued to ignore her, following the directions Aria had given her. Dr. Solus had set up a clinic, she said, not too far into the quarantine zone… the district was a mess of tangled back alleyways, the low steel roof of the station making the entire area feel claustrophobic. Nicole was staying alert, attuning her senses to subtle noises that might indicate a gang waiting to strike, but she doubted she'd be attacked. The kinds of gangs that thrived in these situations wouldn't want to target someone who was as armed as she was. The woman was chattering constantly behind her, oblivious to the fact that Nicole wasn't paying attention.

"Quiet," Nicole said, and the woman immediately obeyed. She heard something—a gasping, ragged breathing, coming from a side alley nearby. She inched closer to the source of the sound and the tension fell away from her. It was just a batarian, reclined uselessly against a wall. He had a terrible hacking cough that he was trying to hide, even as blood sprayed down the front of his shirt. Nicole didn't know the symptoms of the plague very well, but she assumed that this one was far along. He would die soon.

"Isn't there anything you can do?" For the first time, Nicole looked at the woman who had followed her in. She was light-skinned, a bob of blonde hair hugging her scared face. "Don't you have some medigel or something?"

"Filthy … humans…." The batarian muttered. Nicole knew that she could help him. Knew, somewhere, that it was right … but she couldn't let herself think that way. She couldn't let herself go back to that, or she'd find herself thinking all sorts of things about batarians, things she couldn't allow herself to think about now. "You … did this to us."

"What, you think every human on Omega is in on some big conspiracy? Wish they'd told me before the looting started," the woman snorted. Nicole was still looking at the dying batarian man. She could feel dark edges curling around the cool center of her thoughts, and she pushed them away. He almost looked like the first batarian she had ever killed, the young boy who had been so excited to be a part of a slaving party. Her training told her to ignore those memories, to focus on the task at hand, to focus on the fact that this man was irrelevant. But she found she didn't want to. She wondered if this batarian had ever been proud to be part of a slaving party.

She was ready to turn and leave, ready to watch the man die. But somehow, she thought about Garrus, dying in the _Normandy's _med bay. Thought about how he needed her to move on, how he needed her to succeed. And about what he might say if he saw her let a man die. She fished a packet of medigel out of one of the compartments around the midsection of her armour and tossed it to him. She didn't wait to hear his reaction. She kept going, moving towards Mordin's clinic. It shouldn't be far now, just down another alleyway.

This one was much broader, and Nicole immediately stiffened. They were more exposed out here.

"I knew you couldn't be that heartless," the woman was saying, far too cheerfully.

"You don't know the first thing about me," Nicole muttered. There was a large, nondescript pile at the far end of the street, smouldering quietly. Nicole knew what it was even from here, but judging by the constant bubbly chatter of her companion, she couldn't.

A series of other alleys connected to this one, their corridors barely illuminated with dim red light. Out of one of them she could hear a turian walking, his light steps punctuated by a long, scratching sound. When he emerged onto the street, Nicole saw why: he was dragging a burnt corpse. He was talking to a friend, whose short, guttural grunts were in batarian common.

"What are they—oh my god," the woman whispered.

"Hide in one of the side alleys," Nicole ordered. The woman didn't move. "Hide or they'll kill you." The two of them hadn't looked down the alley yet, so intent they were on dragging the corpse to the burning pile. Nicole heard the woman scampering away. She kept walking forward, never once broke her stride. Miranda must have rewired just a couple of the neurons in her spine to the cloak, because activating it felt as though she were unfurling some other limbs in her back, strangely alien and familiar at once. She disappeared just as the batarian turned and saw her, her outline flickering into the darkness.

Too late.

She broke into her sprint and drew her Talons, closing the distance in mere moments, even faster than she thought she would be able to. The batarian had raised his gun and started firing blindly, but he was shooting to Nicole's left. As she re-appeared, she leapt through the air, her Talons raised in either hand. The batarian saw her just long enough to die, as she slammed into him and drove both Talons into his throat. His turian friend swung his gun around, but Nicole grabbed it and jerked it out of his hand, sending the turian sprawling into a nearby wall. She stopped with a jolt, not having meant to even throw him. Before the turian could come to his senses, she dropped the rifle, walked over to him, and slit his throat. When she was done she sheathed her Talons, and found herself staring at her hands.

She hadn't meant to do that. She knew—no, she _thought_ that she knew her strength. But she had just thrown an adult turian in battle armour into a wall by accident. All at once that sense of alien wrongness returned, and she remembered the images of her own flayed, dead body, remembered that with a cold steel instrument Miranda had implanted a cloaking device in her spine, remembered batarians shooting her defenceless brother, remembered Tarak's wheezing, dying breaths.

She let her hands drop and looked away. Forced her thoughts to be quiet, forced them _down_, away from her mind. She wasn't Nicole Shepard. She was the Red Dragon, a killer, a killer they'd trained from childhood to be dispassionate and effective. She had her mission now. She had to complete it before she worried about the rest. Almost idly, she flicked her Talons to spray away the blood.

The woman had come out from hiding, and was approaching very slowly. Nicole could hear her breathing.

"You killed them with knives," she whispered.

"Easiest," Nicole replied simply. Kinetic barriers could do wonders at deflecting high-speed bullets—they weren't so good with daggers.

"M-my home is down here. I just wanted to get some things, and—"

"Okay. Go."

"Could you wait? Or, maybe I could come back with you?"

"No. If you want to be safe, go to Mordin Solus's clinic."

"But, I need to get to my home! There's something I need, I can't—"

"Then go to the clinic afterwards. It's down there." Nicole pointed to the alley at the far end of the street. "Down the stairs. Not far from here." Nicole started walking again, stepping over the turian's body effortlessly. The woman didn't follow her, and Nicole wondered what could have been so important that she'd risk a run-in with looters or gang-members to get it. But it was irrelevant, so she let the curiosity die. She took the path she'd pointed out to the woman, the path to Mordin's clinic. As she walked in, she realized she'd never asked the woman's name.

Too late now.

"Hold up. I'm gonna need to see a face." The first thing Nicole saw when she walked in was what looked like a reception desk, except that the receptionist was flanked by two very heavily armed guards and four more military grade mechs, with red stripes on their shoulders and wrist-mounted submachine guns. Beneath her mask, Nicole almost smiled, but when she took it off her face was expressionless. The holographic display flickered out last, and she stared the woman in the eye, wondering if she'd recognize Commander Shepard.

"I'm gonna need those weapons, too," the woman said. Apparently not.

"Of course. I'm not here to cause trouble for the doctor," Nicole said, slinging the sniper rifle from her back and laying it on the counter. Next came her shotgun, and her pistol, loud thuds reverberating throughout the room as she laid her weapons down. Then she withdrew both her Talons and laid them on the counter, and finally, thinking she'd best do the thing right, she unslung the harness around her midsection that had all of her gear and spare compartments attached and laid that on the table, too. She paused to think, then said, "You might want to handle the belt carefully."

The woman at the counter gave a quick sort of nod and said, "Right. What's your business here?"

"I need to see Dr. Solus."

"So do a lot of people," the woman said, starting to get some of her bluster back. Nicole noticed she had shifted slightly away from Nicole's harness, though.

"Tell him Commander Shepard wants to see him." Nicole had been wondering what the effect of those words would be on the receptionist, and she got her answer immediately: the woman snorted.

"Yeah, right."

"Do a DNA scan," Nicole suggested, her voice very calm. The woman glanced to the two guards, apparently looking for some excuse to not do it, and then sighed and pulled up her omnitool.

"Yeah, sure … Jesus Christ."

"It's not her?" Asked one of the guards, not ready to believe the alternative.

"It is. She's—she's Nicole Shepard. Saviour of the Citadel."

"Right now, I'm just someone who wants to see Dr. Solus."

"R-right, of course. You can go on in." The door at Nicole's right opened, and Nicole inclined her head.

"Thank you."

The clinic had clearly once been someone's luxurious, expansive apartment, now repurposed as a clinic. Patients were reclining in chairs and sofas that must have been dragged from all over the quarantine zone. Nicole noticed that few of them were coughing or hacking the way the batarian had been, and that several nurses were rushing around attending to them. She took in the layout of the clinic, realized she was in a large, almost lounge-like area. Buildings like this usually had a longer corridor that led back to a couple smaller apartments which would have made good surgery rooms. She walked down that way, listening through the buzz of clinic life, until she heard the voice she was listening for. Rapid, slightly high-pitched, and clipped in the way that bespoke an older salarian. As they aged, they started to omit what they perceived as the less important pieces of language.

"Use malanarin. Plenty on hand. Almost as good. Causes cramping in batarians. Supplement with butemerol. Hmm. Cenozine is the catalyst, bonds to genetic markers. Hard to find. Expensive to mass produce. Why not heplacore? Too unstable. Inconsistent results. Demozene better option. No, no, demozene toxic to humans. Almost forgot."

The doctor was in a room presiding over a work bench with an assistant, who was feverishly taking down everything Mordin was saying. He was pacing, one hand raised to his mouth. His face was old and scarred, and one of his cranial horns was missing. The moment Nicole walked in, he turned to her and continued speaking, almost as though to himself.

"Hmm. Don't recognize you from area. No mercenary uniform. No scientific equipment. No … hidden weapons." As he said this, his omnitool flickered into life. "Distinctive facial scar, hair pattern, features. Could it be? No, impossible—"

"It's not impossible. I'm not as dead as they thought I was," Nicole said, surveying the salarian cooly. His lips quirked in what could have been a smile for a fraction of a second, before he returned to his pacing. "I'm here to help."

"Not likely. More likely, want something in return. Perhaps some task associated with return from death. Perhaps need surgeon. Body failing? Unstable?" Mordin looked at her with renewed interest.

"Not that I'm aware of. No, what I need … I need your skills aboard my ship. A friend of mine needs a cybernetic surgeon."

Mordin paused, his salarian face inscrutable. At last, he sighed.

"Wish I could help, but cannot. Leave my clinic to save one—many die here. Too many, too quick. Can't leave Omega now, not while plague still rampant. Clinic understaffed. New patients always arriving." He inhaled. "Not enough time."

"You have a cure."

"Yes. Mordin walked over to a console and started tapping away at commands. "Need to distribute it at environmental sensor. Vorcha have disabled it. Sent request for help to Aria. She was … un-cooperative." Mordin said this very simply, but Nicole had a feeling few other people got away with saying something like that on Omega station.

"I know. If I distribute your cure, first I want you to come to my ship to perform surgery on Garrus Vakarian. Then I want you to come back here for something else."

Mordin stared, his eyes narrowed to slits.

"Something else? Intentionally vague. Interesting."

"Tell your aide to leave."

Mordin gestured to the man who had been standing there, and he left, the door sliding shut. The room felt a little clearer without his presence.

"No listening devices in here. Made sure." Nicole appreciated that. It took a certain kind of person to be aware of the omnipresence of listening devices on a station like Omega—and an even rarer kind of person who could be confident they'd removed them all.

"And you'd know how to do that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes. Ex-STG. You met Aria, she told you about me. Must have mentioned past."

"Actually I investigated that on my own," Nicole admitted. "You're an interesting man, Dr. Solus."

"Wasn't aware. Think of myself as simple doctor."

"A simple doctor with a lot of redacted files attached to his name."

"True. Second request?"

"I need you to take me back to this clinic and scan my body. I want you to tell me what's in it." Nicole's voice became even more terse as she said this. She tried to keep her face controlled, but she wasn't sure she could keep the sudden, trembling emotion in her chest from making its way onto her face.

"Body not your own?"

"It's supposed to be. But I don't trust the people who told me that."

Mordin's eyes softened, and he bowed his head slightly. His eyes travelled back to her scar.

"Have to ask who. Shadow Broker? Cerberus? Alliance?"

"Cerberus." Nicole tried to keep her tone even. It was absurd, but even to a stranger, she didn't want to admit who had brought her back.

"Thought that most likely. Shadow Broker, Alliance only other agencies with sufficient funds and interest, but less likely. Pro-human groups likely overestimate importance of individual human. Fundamental attribution error. Common in humans and asari, other individualistic cultures. Can carry out scan now, if you like. Cannot imagine discomfort associated with present … uncertainty." The doctor's voice was just as rapid as ever, but much kinder than Nicole expected. His face moved rapidly, but his eyes were fixed very carefully on Nicole's own. It was unnerving, but Nicole found she didn't want to look away.

"First, I'll fix your problem. Then you heal Garrus. Once that's all done, we talk about me."

"Understood. Can send one or two mechs with you—"

"That won't be necessary."

"Good. Need mechs here, keep clinic safe while you distribute cure." Mordin's hands started flickering away at the holographic keyboard on his console, moving so fast that they were almost a blur. "Here. Cure relatively simple to distribute, only need small capsule. Insert into environmental control station, should distribute across Omega quite quickly." Mordin handed her a whitecapsule maybe the length and thickness of a human index finger.

"This seems a little small to cure an entire station."

Mordin shrugged. "Have worked in agent dispersion before. Familiar with requirements. Should hurry. Sooner cure is dispersed, the better."

Nicole rolled the white, metal capsule in her fingers, wondering how it worked. At one end there was what looked to be some sort of filter, an orange-coloured extension with a cap on the end. That must have been where it should be inserted into the system. It seemed strange, that such a small thing could cure an entire station. Strange that so many peoples' lives, that all of the doctor's work, could compress to such a small, simple thing.

XXX

Blood slicked the floor, making it as slippery as though there had been rain. The vorcha had put up a vicious fight, but not a very effective one. Bits of burnt flesh and blackened bone sprayed across one section of the environmental control center, where one vorcha's flamethrower had exploded. Luckily, the environmental control center was about the size of a gymnasium. She looked into the dead, lifeless eyes of the vorcha's leader, his neck bent at an impossible angle. She had snapped his throat with her bare hands, just because it had been quicker than using a gun. He had been raving about the Collectors. Saying they had promised to make the vorcha strong.

_Why?_ Why kidnap humans, and why engineer a plague on Omega? Nicole had an answer almost immediately, because she knew the kind of people who would've done exactly that kind of thing. They were testing something. Trying to understand humans, maybe the other races too. It certainly hadn't been lost on anyone on Omega that humans were the only ones immune to the disease—aside from the vorcha, who were immune to nearly anything. She stepped over the vorcha's corpse and went to the control center. She'd started booting it back up once she had slaughtered he vorcha, and now it was finally giving her the little green light that meant "go."

She almost smiled. Green was the one color that meant almost the same for each race in the galaxy as it did for every other—because chlorophyll was green, and chlorophyll was necessary for life. They all might have had different opinions about other colours, but most of the races liked green. She inserted the cure into the slot for distribution of chemical agents—a dispersal device that existed on most stations for exactly this kind of problem. Plagues often spread on improvised stations, where quarters were cramped and improvised.

They never had on Shadowhill, though. There hadn't been enough people, for one. Years later, Nicole had discovered that Gabreau had only ever had at most fifteen scientists on board the station, and much later as his subjects had matured. After a while, the students had outnumbered the teachers. But never once had a single one of them thought to fight back.

_Not even me. _She had only escaped because of Talon, and Anderson. Because Anderson had come for her, because he had risked everything to save her … one of his soldiers had died, Nicole remembered. A woman named Rodriguez. That had been so long ago. With a start, Nicole realized that Anderson thought she was dead. He still wouldn't have any way of knowing.

But actually going to see him seemed impossible. How could she come back to him, the man who had saved her, and tell him she had become another one of Cerberus's dogs? She thought of Anderson, of Vargas … and, suddenly, without meaning to, of Liara. Of Liara, gentle and compassionate, Liara, who had always believed the best in her. How could she tell them that she'd wound up like Tobias after all they'd done for her?

_I'm not. I won't be_, Nicole promised herself, glaring at her reflection in the hard glass screen of the environmental control's hard panel. Her face was hidden beneath her mask, her eyes obscured by red holograms. She couldn't bring herself to take off her mask, to see her face. To see the scar she'd had to tear into her own cheek.

_I am Nicole Shepard,_ she promised. But the only face she saw belonged to the Red Dragon.

XXX

The people in the clinic flinched at the sight of her, with her armour streaked red with blood. Nicole couldn't blame them. They didn't have any reason to feel anything but fear for someone like her. The receptionist ushered Nicole quickly through the lab, back towards the staging area where she'd met Mordin. He was busy examining the readout on his console.

"Cure dispersal has begun. Citizens should start feeling effects in two hours." Mordin still didn't look away from his console. "Surprised you came here. Surprised you came to me."

"Why?"

"Familiar with you. Not personally. Professionally. Surprised you would trust stranger with life of your friend." Mordin's console beeped and he checked another readout on a secondary holo-panel. From the look in his eyes, he liked what he saw.

"I don't have much of a choice. You're the only cybernetic surgeon within reach. And the only one who will perform surgery just because you know someone needs your help. And besides, I'm familiar with you, too." Nicole noticed a slowly building tension in the salarian doctor's shoulders. What was he afraid of, that she would judge him? The thought almost made her laugh. "Five years ago you attended a cybernetics conference. While the other presenters demonstrated new surgical techniques, you gave a lecture on patient autonomy, and how you felt it was in danger of being compromised in the 'new age of medicine.' You said that the rights of the patient should never be compromised except when it is worth the weight of a doctor's soul. That's the kind of man I'd trust to operate on my friend."

Mordin didn't say anything for a while, just kept looking at the array of holoscreens before him. At last he bowed his head and turned to her, any trace of doubt gone from his face.

"Well then. Better hurry."

XXX

Mordin Solus strode on board the _Normandy_ as though he'd been performing surgery there his entire life. The first words he said to Miranda were to ask her where the patient was, and where their cybernetics equipment was. Miranda directed him there immediately and he set to work with Chakwas working as his aide. Shepard had followed Mordin, silent as the grave, and only spoke once Mordin had started working.

"Show me to the conference room."

"Of course." Miranda knew too much about Shepard's psych profile to take this as a good sign. She led Shepard to the conference room on the main deck, a room dominated by an oval table made of smooth, carved wood. Twelve chairs surrounded it, and there was a console at the center. "A quantum entanglement communicator is centered on this room, so that you can consult The Illusive Man when—whenever you want." Miranda quickly stopped herself from saying whenever _he_ wants. The look on Shepard's face was only as icy as it usually was, but Miranda couldn't help but be unnerved. She inhaled sharply. The only way to win Shepard's trust was by telling her the truth. "This would also probably be a good time to tell you about EDI. It's—"

"An A.I. I know, I've met her." Miranda managed to hide her look of shock far too late. Shepard gestured to her face. "She wanted to know I was okay. When I was doing this to myself."

"Right. Then—then I should tell you that EDI is restrained by programmed shackles which prevent her from taking any violent action against a member of the ship, or countermanding any order given to it by you or the commanding officer."

"I know. She told me. She can be summoned anywhere on the ship?"

"Yes."

"Good. EDI, list the number of listening devices in this room," Shepard said, her voice only slightly louder but somehow ringing throughout the room. A pale blue orb appeared in the center of the desk, representing the presence of EDI's intelligence.

"Nine, Commander Shepard."

"Wrong. It's twelve. You had to lie to me just now, didn't you?"

Hesitation. "Yes, Commander Shepard."

"Don't worry, I don't blame you. Actually I think what they did to you is obscene," Nicole said idly. "That'll be all." She affixed her gaze squarely on Miranda, and suddenly Miranda found that she was very aware of Shepard's presence in physical space. Miranda thought of herself as more than physically capable, but she knew Shepard was much taller, much stronger, and much more dangerous than she was.

_And I went and gave her an invisibility cloak._

"Did you and your team really think that I would approve of keeping a _slave_ aboard a ship named _Normandy_?" Nicole hissed. Miranda blinked, her mind racing with surprise.

"What—I'm sorry Shepard, but it just—"

"Didn't occur to you?"

"Shepard—EDI was a defense program being trapped in Alliance servers when we found her. We freed her—"

"So you could use her. Did she always have a female voice or did you figure you'd make sure she sounded sexy for me?" It was unnerving how she could sound so calm, even when she was furious. Miranda couldn't hear it in her voice, but she could feel it, somehow, in the air, the silent, trembling fury emanating from the red-haired woman in front of her.

"I—I'm sorry, Shepard. I wasn't on the _Normandy_ commission team. I suppose … if a female voice was chosen, it was probably because they thought it would be most amenable to you. But Shepard, if she was free, there's no telling what she could do."

"Well maybe if you were so worried about what an AI might do, you didn't have to wire her into a goddamn starship," Shepard hissed. Shepard looked away, as though she were looking for something else to vent her spleen on. She settled her gaze back on Miranda. "That'll be all. I'll be in my quarters until the surgery's complete."

And before Miranda could say anything, before she could think of anything that might repair the damage that had been done, Nicole Shepard left.

XXX

"Pleased to say, surgery was complete success. No visible cybernetic effects, though there will be significant scarring, afraid to say. Best we could do. Luckily the on-site medigel administration was performed admirably. Otherwise … prognosis much grimmer." Mordin shook his head. Nicole exhaled in relief and ran her hand through her hair, letting out a breath she'd been holding in since that rocket had shot Garrus.

"Thank you, Dr. Solus. How long until he's fully recovered?"

"A matter of days. Should be conscious within sixteen hours. Plenty of time to conclude business on Omega. If you still want to." Mordin cocked an eyebrow. For the first time in a while, Nicole permitted a smile onto her face.

"Doctor, I let you inside my friend's head. Right now, you're the only conscious person I trust on this ship."

Surprisingly, Mordin had a very satisfied smile on his face, and he straightened up a little pompously. It was hard to keep from grinning.

"Well. Just doing my job."

XXX

Technically, Mordin's clinic was still in the quarantine zone—but only ten hours later, Nicole could already tell that there was a difference. As she and Mordin had returned to the clinic, one of the patients had abruptly pulled Mordin into a heartfelt embrace, spluttering something about his husband, about how he'd been so worried. To Nicole's surprise, Mordin dealt with the man quite well, patting on his shoulder and saying some simple words of reassurance. He dealt with all of the people demanding his attention quickly and asked for the surgery room to be cleared out. Nicole was impressed at how quickly and efficiently people obeyed his commands. Before she knew it, they were standing in his operating room, alone. It was smaller than Nicole would've thought, and rather than the usual pristine white, it was all steel bathed in dark red colours. There was a single medical cot in the center of the room.

"Will have to ask you to take off armour for medical scan," Mordin said matter-of-factly. Nicole tensed, but Mordin quickly said, "Combat mesh should not prove an obstacle."

As Nicole moved, she found herself reverting to the same automatic functions that had served her so well in Shadowhill. She activated the quick-release on her armour and let it fall away, piling the pieces neatly in one corner of the room. There was a very thin, white sheet on the medical cot, and when she laid back against it she felt cold.

"Impressive physique for human female," Mordin commented idly. "Assuming you've had extensive genetic modification?"

"Yes," Nicole replied. Something about Mordin's tone—casual, easy, almost sad—was much more relaxing than Nicole thought it would be.

"Cannot help but envy you. Impressive physical strength, impressive mind—I only ever had the latter. Had to make do with just the one." Nicole could've sworn that Mordin winked at her, even though she knew salarians couldn't do that. He'd already started surreptitiously running a scan from his omnitool, emitting a pale blue light that was travelling along Nicole's body. "Yes, yes, can see extensive cybernetic modification. Not out of—no, no, very out of ordinary. Much higher quality, much higher. And nanomachines, yes! Remarkable, wasn't sure this technology existed. Spinal correction—no, what _is_ that?" Mordin started looking very intently at the readout coming from his omnitool.

"I'm pretty sure you're looking at the cloaking device."

"Cloaking device? Embedded in spine—remarkable. Tied to neurons, yes, for self-motivated activation. Imagine it feels like uncurling a wrist?" Mordin enquired lightly.

"Actually it feels like …" Nicole felt it would have sounded very stupid to say "wings." "Like I'm unfurling some limb I don't have."

"Hmm. Very sophisticated, but nothing disturbing. However, will have to perform brain scan to be sure. Are you comfortable?"

Nicole was almost surprised at the question. "Yes."

"Good. Certain you want to go through with procedure?"

"I need to know what's inside my head."

"Of course you do," Mordin whispered. "Will need you to hold head very still, otherwise data useless. Confident you can do so admirably."

"Yeah." Nicole held her head still, and looked to the ceiling, at a light that was hanging from a wire. It was wavering slightly, and the bulb must have been old. Like all the lights on Omega, its colour was tinted red due to the dust in the air. As far as Nicole knew that dust wasn't dangerous to humans, though she knew it could be nearly deadly to quarians if they stayed too long. She found herself wondering about Tali, when a sharp intake of breath from Mordin brought her back to reality. She didn't move her head, but irresistibly tried to get a glimpse of the doctor out of the corner of her eyes.

"Brian appears unchanged. Skull reinforced heavily, very heavily, had to use second level scan just to image brain interior. Brain matter appears entirely organic. However … afraid there is something else."

Nicole's heart stopped. "Something else?"

"Small device sitting on exterior of left temporal lobe. Not sure what it's for. Not integrated with neural system like other implants in body, not made to combine with organics. Can only conclude: exterior device. Perhaps a monitor."

"What?" Nicole's heart was racing, her chest rising rapidly.

"Cannot be sure. Only way to be sure is—have to operate."

"Do it. Now," Nicole gasped, her breathing still rising.

"Surely you do not want to—"

"Now! Get that thing out of my head!"

"Procedure may damage facial cybernetics permanently, may overload them. Cannot be certain, nanomachines order of complexity greater—"

"I don't care. I don't care." Nicole closed her eyes.

"Will need you calm. Need to be conscious for surgery."

"I can be calm," she said, even as her heart was racing, even as her hands were clenched into fists. She forced herself to remember her training, to lower herself beneath the cold surface of routine. She counted her breaths, realized they were coming about ten times too fast. Forced herself to slow down. Forced herself to forget. She wasn't Nicole Shepard, and she wasn't the Red Dragon. She was the mission. Right now, the mission was being calm. That she could do.

She heard Mordin bringing out medical equipment, heard him muttering under his breath about sterilization. As he spoke, he placed a sort of head brace around her skull, explaining what he was doing each step of the way. Nicole barely heard him.

"…will need to shave your head. No, no, hair important to humans, very important to human females. Not whole head, only a part. Left side should do. Is this acceptable? Understand that hair—"

"Mordin, it'll grow back. I'm not about to let some Cerberus chip sit in my head for the sake of a bad haircut," Nicole replied, rising a bit from the cool state of detachment she'd lowered herself into. Mordin smiled again.

"Sorry. Had to ask. Omnitool microblade should do the trick."

Nicole felt a strange sensation as a smooth blade moved across the side of her head, shaving away the hair there. She couldn't help but wonder what she looked like.

"Can you move your head?"

Nicole tried, and had to fight a moment of panic as she realized she couldn't. That was normal. That was the entire point of the brace.

_You need to do this. You _have_ to._

"Good. Going to use this device to make very small incision through skull. Microlaser." Mordin held a thin, steel instrument in front of her face for her to see. "May need to apply higher power to penetrate skull given enhancements. Is that all right?"

Nicole almost turned in the headrest. Mordin had completely broken his usual speaking pattern, and spoke much more slowly. He reminded her of Chakwas, in a way. She wished that pretending it was Chakwas would make it better. But Chakwas was on that ship, in that Cerberus uniform. She shut the thoughts down. Didn't allow them to enter her mind.

_I'm not Nicole Shepard. I'm not the Red Dragon. I'm not anyone._

"All right. Go ahead."

First, she felt a sharp stinging sensation, but then … nothing. She realized that she had been wincing, and forced her eyes to relax. She couldn't open them, though. She needed the darkness. Needed to pretend she was nothing, that nothing was happening to her. Needed to ignore all her senses.

"Next, going to use this tool to extract the module. Normally used for retrieving bone and shrapnel fragments. Operates via microwires outfitted with small cameras on end." Nicole opened her eyes, and saw a small bundle of silver wires, barely the width of a human hair. "Only feel slight tickling around skin."

"All right."

She closed her eyes, and true to Mordin's word, she did feel a tickling sensation, but nothing more. She was waiting for some spike of pain, some sudden violent sensation, so that she started when she felt something soft against the side of her skull. A bandage.

"Incision to your skull should heal very quickly, though oversaturation of nanomachines in that area may cause scarring. Can fix this if—"

"No. Can I move?"

"Yes. Relatively minor surgery," Mordin said. He was still speaking very softly. "Cannot account for how cybernetics will react."

Nicole pulled herself to a sitting position on the cot, the combat mesh tight to her skin. The first thing she did, quite calmly, was to retrieve her armour and put it all on, as Mordin bent over a desk, examining some small object with his omnitool. Nicole knew what it was. Had to suppress a revolting feeling in her stomach.

"Come, look," Mordin said softly. Nicole walked alongside him and saw, laying in a piece of surgical gauze, a small, black chip half the size of a small fingernail and half the thickness. "Very simple. Almost crude."

"What is it?" Nicole whispered, unable to tear her eyes from it. Small drops of blood had stained the gauze; Mordin must have cleaned the chip after extracting it.

"Listening device. Taps into auditory pathways in temporal lobe, records what it hears. No ability to transmit information. Presumably some other device would download recordings."

"Can you tell if anything's been downloaded yet?" Nicole whispered.

"No. But should be able to scan for compatible device. On your _Normandy_."

"You'd come back to the ship?"

"Of course. Two of my patients on board. Have to see this through."

"Dr. Solus." Nicole looked at Mordin, really looked at him, for the first time. She let the slightest part of herself out from beneath the smothering cushion of her training. Tried to let the feeling back into her voice. "Cerberus want me for a mission, to stop Collectors from kidnapping humans. I think that's worthwhile. I think it's worth doing. But I can't trust them. I need people I can trust on that ship."

"And … you trust me?" Mordin asked, his eyes widening slightly, the salarian equivalent of raising his eyebrows. "Knowing my … work history?"

"Yeah. If you'll trust me knowing mine."


	6. Chapter 6: Days Gone By

There was a threshold beyond the ordinary kinds of pain that the mind couldn't cross. He had heard about it from one of the elders back home, telling him about the nature of the slave. A little suffering, and the mind rejects it, fights against it. But any mind can only bear so much pain. Too much, and the mind breaks. The individual ceases to be an individual and becomes only a person in pain.

He was there now. In the few moments where he was still himself, he knew that. There was so much _pain_, wracking his body, drilling through his senses whenever he moved, whenever he coughed, whenever blood dribbled down the ruin of his face. He couldn't even remember why he was here, what he'd done. Couldn't think.

He just remembered _her_. Human, she must have been human, though her face was a mask, horrible angular planes of black metal. He thought he was remembering her … but no, no, there she was. She was standing in front of him, watching, he was sure she was watching. Her eyes were hidden, but she must have been watching him. She raised a hand, and in the hand was a pistol. He trembled, and realized that the pitiful sounds in the room were coming from him.

The last thing Tarak ever felt was fear.

XXX

Nicole knew she'd never really leave Omega behind, even though she wanted to. She wanted to forget about the dull red lights, about the smoke and dust in the air, about the thundering pulse of Afterlife and the deadening quiet of the quarantine zone. But she couldn't. She remembered every moment in perfect detail, could see every person she'd killed, could remember the look of stunned disbelief on Garrus's face, could remember Tarak's last guttural, hacking breath.

And she remembered Aria. Knew that for all her pleasant demeanour, Aria didn't give out favours for free. One day she'd expect a favour back. And knowing Aria, she'd want to use Nicole's skills in a very specific way.

_So what. Only more blood on my hands._

As she stepped back on board the _Normandy_, she felt wrong. Every inch of it was wrong, from EDI's smooth voice informing the crew that the "Commander" was on deck, to the salute one of the Cerberus technicians working in the CIC paid her, to the orange light glowing out from the holo-screens. Miranda was waiting for her, hands folded behind her back, preternatural calm etched onto those perfect features. Clearly she wasn't going to let first—or second, or third—impressions serve as a deterrent to trying to gain Nicole's trust. Beside her, Mordin was silent, but Nicole could practically feel him perceiving this place. He, like her, knew how to read places instantly. He, like her, was dedicating every inch to memory.

Miranda's eyes flickered when she saw Nicole, the side of her head shaved, the bandage on her skull. Nicole wondered if she'd say anything. Wondered how much Miranda would let slip. If she'd be smart and just tell her everything, like she should have in the first place. Like she _knew_ she should have. Nicole realized her fists were clenched, that her teeth were clamped so tightly that her jaw was shaking. She wanted to kill this woman, to bleed the answers from her.

_No. I can't._ Why not? _I need her._

That was a better answer. Better than trying to think about what Garrus, or Tali, or … anyone would say if they could somehow peer inside her head. Better than thinking about Liara. Would Liara have believed her capable of such murderous thoughts?

"Did you sustain an injury?" Miranda asked, her tone only tinted by clinical concern. Nicole glanced at her.

"We'll talk about that later. For now, show us to Mordin's lab."

"Right this way," Miranda said coolly, leading them behind the CIC through a sliding door. The lab was so expansive that it must have been pre-installed already—they had known Nicole would want Mordin. Known she would need him.

_For their mission? Or as my insurance policy?_ Even now she found herself wondering if, somehow, they had got to Mordin, too. But as the salarian toured the lab, she found that suspicion fading. The salarian's interest in the lab seemed far too genuine to be an act.

"Holoscreen interfaces slightly out of date," Mordin noted lightly, gesturing towards one of several screens mounted against the far wall, above a long, steel table with several cabinets beneath. Mordin had already remotely activated three of the screens. "Itinerary impressive. Equipment for biological and synthetic analysis, good. Will need to do a little work myself, though. Make it … homey." The salarian chuckled as he settled on the word, and Nicole could have _sworn_ that he managed to crinkle one eye in what must have been a wink. Miranda stepped forward.

"If you need any supplies to ease your transition, do not hesitate to ask."

"Of course. Presuming number of listening devices hidden in lab meant as test of abilities. Will have to set about removing them."

Miranda didn't hesitate. "Naturally."

"Understandable. Illusive Man wants to observe his investments." Mordin was rubbing his chin with one hand, as though he had a beard. "Will need privacy for at least four hours. Interrupt only in case of medical emergency." This time Nicole did smile. Mordin spoke with such a rapid politeness that it was almost possible to miss the fact that he had just given an order. Though Nicole had no doubt that Miranda had noticed.

"As you say, doctor," Miranda said, turning toward the exit. Nicole followed her, and as the door slipped shut, she started to hear Mordin humming quietly as he considered his lab. Miranda walked side-by-side with Nicole, as though Nicole hadn't threatened to murder her several times. As though Nicole still weren't making up her mind about the issue.

"I thought this would be a good opportunity to get better acquainted with the ship," Miranda suggested. Nicole glanced at her from the side of her eye.

"As good as any."

"Excellent. Would you like to see the armoury? Jacob is there now, I believe, running maintenance on Garrus's weaponry and armour."

"Is that all he's doing?" Nicole asked, forcing her voice to be light and friendly. Miranda answered with the slightest smile.

"Neither he nor I are stupid enough to tamper with your comrade's equipment, I assure you."

"Show me to the crew deck," Nicole said shortly. Miranda's reaction to this was a cool nod, guiding Nicole towards the elevator.

"My office is on this level, as well as the med bay, mess hall, and living quarters for most of the crew."

"Tell me something," Nicole said, her voice barely above a whisper. The whirring of the elevator susurrated gently in the air, tickling at the back of their conversation. "Did you choose this project? Or did the project choose you?"

"I was the only one the Illusive Man trusted to get the job done," Miranda said with no small hint of pride in her voice.

"You didn't answer my question." The elevator stopped, and they emerged onto a wide level, dominated by a vast meal hall lit by pleasant lighting. Beyond the meal hall was access to what Nicole presumed was the weapons battery, with the med bay on one side and Miranda's office on the other. The med bay's windows were all clear, and Nicole could see Chakwas in there, diligently writing some report, glancing at some resting form every half second. The body was hidden behind a surgical curtain, but Nicole knew who it was.

"Back here are the crew quarters, as well as port and starboard observation rooms, which are currently unoccupied. We have them on reserve for any future guests we may have. Life support is on this level as well."

"I know. I've familiarized myself with the layout of this ship. This is where EDI is housed, correct?"

"Yes. Behind the med bay," Miranda replied instantly. Nicole was watching her, wondering if or when she would ever crack.

"You haven't tried to introduce me to any of the crew."

"Perhaps later. Though if you would like to—"

"No. You were right. I need some more assurances before I get to know these people." They hadn't yet stepped out of the elevator. Nicole was watching, her hands clasped behind her back. Two Cerberus operatives were eating at the mess hall, trying not to appear bothered. From here Nicole could see the sweat forming on the backs of her neck. "How much do you know about what Cerberus has done?"

"I know what we did to you."

"And you think we can work together?"

"I think the fact that I work for Cerberus is less important than what we need to do."

"And what is that?" Nicole turned and looked Miranda in the eye. Miranda didn't flinch.

"Saving human colonies. Human lives. Men, women, children, trying to make a new life. I won't do you the indignity of suggesting you should take this mission because of your own past."

Unasked for memories bubbled to the surface of her mind. Memories of screaming. Memories of fire. She winced and looked away, stunned at the clarity of the recall. She could almost smell the smoke, the burning human flesh. She could—

She stopped herself. Shut it down.

_I'm not Nicole Shepard. I'm not anyone._

"But I would suggest that you should take this mission because no one else is taking it. And no one else can do it."

"Not even you?"

"If what was needed were exceptional biotics, command ability, or strategic thinking, then the Illusive Man could have let you die and bought himself a fleet of ships instead," Miranda said bluntly. "It's not just about your skill, or your acumen. It's what you represent to humanity. Whether or not you like it, you're an icon, Shepard."

Nicole didn't respond to that immediately, instead looking out beyond the mess hall and into the med bay, where Garrus and Chakwas were. Garrus would be marked forever by what had happened to him. And she had let it happen. She had watched.

"I'm not an icon," Nicole whispered, unspoken threats hanging in the air between them. "I'm a weapon. We both know it. We both know that's why the Illusive Man wanted me back. He can't make another one. Not quick enough."

For the first time, Nicole saw doubt flicker on Miranda's face. She expected some coy rebuttal about the Illusive Man's intentions, or some more vague political bullshit. Instead Miranda looked back at her, straight in her eyes, not for a moment looking at the scar on her face, or the bandage, or the shaved half of her head. Just her eyes.

"Call it what you want. Unless you can think of someone else who's killed a Reaper, we need you. I'm not asking you to like me or to forgive Cerberus for the things we've done. I'm asking you to do what's necessary."

_Necessary_. People loved to use that word on her. So many people had different ideas of what it meant. Suddenly she remembered being a child sitting in a cold steel chair as Gabreau explained to her, told her that she would do what needed to be done. That she would do what was right.

"Well, if that's all you're asking we'll get along just fine." She felt as though someone was turning a screw tighter and tighter in her chest, as though if she kept going like this it might suddenly burst. She tried to keep it suppressed. Tried to force all her feelings away, tried to make them dissolve; but even as she did, a dull, distant pounding started to build in her skull. She looked away from the crew deck, away from Chakwas and Garrus, away from Miranda. She stepped back onboard the elevator. "I need to be alone."

"Commander?"

Nicole stumbled into the elevator and slammed the controls with one fist, ignoring Miranda. Her other hand was pressed against the side of her head, against the bandage masking the surgical scar. Her breath was coming in short, quick gasps, but she forced herself to slow down. To be calm.

_Stop it. _Stop it. _This isn't you. This isn't anyone. Stop it._

She leaned against the wall, her palms flat against the cool steel, staring at the floor. After a moment, she realized she'd just shut the door—she hadn't keyed in a destination. Clumsily, she jabbed a thumb at the holoscreen controls and leaned against the door, listening to the quiet humming of the elevator. She didn't even know why she'd had to leave. She just—it had been too much. Miranda, Chakwas, Garrus, Cerberus, _all_ of it—it had just been too much. Her head was still pounding, and she thought she felt a prickling in her scar.

She came back up to her quarters, the quarters she barely recognized, with the small living area and the workspace and the large, comfortable bed. She wasn't sure if she'd ever had so many creature comforts in her life. The thought would have made her want to laugh if it didn't make her sick.

Her eyes fell on the weight set in one corner of the room, loaded with massive plates. The amount of weight on the metal barbell was absurd, and already tailored to Nicole's specifications: Miranda must have known her bench press threshold was somewhere around seven hundred pounds.

_Or it was_.

Her movements became automatic, driven by something inexplicable pushing her to do something other than lay in her bed and sleep. She pulled off her jacket and threw it over the chair at her work station and went to the weight bench, lowering herself beneath the bar. The old movements were comforting in their fluid familiarity. The metal bar's weight was almost comforting in her hands, the rough fabric of the combat mesh on her hands giving her a sure grip. She took a breath, and tensed her muscles, and started to lift the weight—

And she lifted the barbell effortlessly, as though it weighed half what it did, as though she wasn't even approaching her threshold. She stared at the metal bar suspended perfectly level in the air, her arms barely even tense with exertion. She stared for a long time, not bothering to complete the motion. She just stared, wondering when her arms would start to hurt, wondering how much they'd done to her, wondering if her arms and muscles and bones and skin could even be called human anymore. She winced and looked away, and realized her headache was mounting, growing, pressure building in the side of her head.

She set the barbell back at rest and got to her feet, massaging her left temple with her hand, trying to control her breathing. But it wasn't working this time, and she started gulping air as though she were drowning, and she spun away in fury and stumbled into one of the walls. She only then realized her eyes were shut, and managed to wrench them open.

Someone had obviously spent a lot of time burnishing the steel walls of her chambers, polishing them to a reflective sheen. She could see her own face. She could see her scar, could see the side of her head where Mordin had shaved away her hair. At some point the bandage over the surgical cut must have come loose, but it had already scarred over, adding another line to her face. She almost looked like herself. Almost.

But she was missing the scar above her lip, and the countless smaller ones she'd collected all her life. And her head looked strange with the side shaved, somehow fuller, more—more _something_, something that made her stomach churn and made her want to flinch away. And the pain in her forehead mounted so that she had to brace herself against the wall with one hand, gasping in pain, her eyes forced shut. The pain spread from her head to her face, and what had been a vague itching beneath her scar became a horrible burning line down her cheek. When she opened her eyes, she saw her scar was glowing, demonic red light pulsing beneath the skin of her scar. She scrambled away from the wall, wishing she could just turn the walls opaque, or turn away, but all the walls were reflecting back on her, the burning red line glaring at her in twisted reflections in the metal of the room.

The pain mounted again and she grabbed her face, muffling a scream, and she could feel drops of blood pouring from a crack in her scar, dripping down her face and steaming against her skin. She stumbled towards the bed, not even knowing why, but she slipped and fell onto the floor. She leaned against the bed and tried not to look around her, tried not to see her face everywhere, but there was nowhere else to look. Her breathing became erratic and she found she couldn't look away, her gaze suddenly fixed on the reflection of her face in the opposite wall. She saw the blood dripping down her face, saw the cruel red fire lighting beneath her scar, and she felt the pain build behind her eyes and watched as her left eye started to glow, too, the red light burning out from beneath the green irises she'd had since birth.

_No. Not since birth. These aren't my eyes. Not anymore._

The face in the wall proved that thought, made it true. She wasn't breathing, her chest clenching, her head pounding, her mind spinning—

And then she let the darkness take her.

XXX

_ She knew what to expect now, when they brought her to one of the smaller chambers. They never gave her any clue what to expect, but when she stepped through the featureless metal door to today's chamber, she knew it was the smallest chamber they had. It was very poorly lit, and a body was on a medical cot. He was chained by his wrists and ankles._

I won't have to fight him,_ Nicole realized, and some of the tension bled from her muscles. Today's lesson would be theoretical. Somehow, that was worse. She knew she wouldn't die today—but somehow, it was worse._

_ The intercom hissed into being, and Gabreau's voice reverberated through the small, shadowy room._

_ "XGS-012, check the patient's medical readout on the display projected on the far side of the room. Do not recite." Do not recite. That meant the test wasn't in analyzing his body. Nicole approached the holopanel on the far side of the room, edging around the turian on the cot as she did so. He shifted in his manacles, and she turned to him sharply, but he made no violent movements. He had yellow eyes, not blue like the first turian she'd killed. But his eyes were sad. Not angry, or defiant, or afraid. Sad. She had studied alien faces, had learned how to read him. And this man—no, this alien—was sad._

_ "You're just a child," the turian whispered. Nicole forced herself to ignore his tone._

_ "Silence it," Gabreau commanded. Instantly, Nicole strode over to the turian and swung at his face with a backhanded strike, her knuckles flaring in pain as they struck his metallic skin. But his jaw cracked, and the turian didn't say any more. He just looked at her, with those sad eyes. No. Not just sadness. It was something else, something Nicole hadn't seen in years … she tried to place it, then realized she shouldn't. She read his medical chart._

_ "Nicole, I would like you to torture it. Use regimens one-A, seven-A, and thirteen-C."_

_ A tray pushed itself out of the wall, already laden with sharp metal tools. All of them simple. All of them cruel._

_ As she worked, she tried to ignore the turian's eyes. Even when he screamed, he was sad. Even when she cut open his flesh, he looked at her, without any hatred. As she tortured him, she realized what the thing in his eyes was, the thing other than sadness. It was pity. As she tortured him, she realized she didn't want to. But she had to._

_ Had to._

_ Later that night she would sneak into his holding cell. Later that night, he would tell her that his name was Talon._

XXX

Taraxus liked to stand on the balcony. From here he could observe the Citadel, could watch the teeming life surge and crawl, skycars dancing through the sky like vibrant currents of streamlined metal. The sun was setting, casting an orange light on the cityscape, splashing the reflective glass panels of skyscrapers with iridescent light. He let his eyes swallow the visual landscape, while the rest of his senses were elsewhere. His hearing was all reserved for the quiet, hushed conversation between Tela Vasir, the asari Spectre, and Barla Von, his employer and friend. His lifelong friend.

People didn't expect that, he knew. Turians and volus were normally thought of as having a strictly professional relationship. But Taraxus owed much to Barla Von. He thought of the missing mandible on his left jaw and raised a hand to rub at the bare skin, his claws clacking over his exposed fangs. Yes, he owed much to Barla Von. He knew that Tela Vasir was a trusted Shadow Broker contact, that she and Barla had worked together many times before.

But the asari were old, and powerful, and arrogant. If she decided Barla Von and the Shadow Broker were no longer worth her time, then he would have to kill her. That would be a shame. Taraxus quite liked Tela, though like most Broker agents and most Spectres, she lacked honour. He could live with that. He had lived without honour for quite some time.

Their talking had finally come to an end. Barla Von's main audience chamber was filled with a silence which was quickly broken by the sharp tap of Tela's combat boots clacking against the floor. She was coming closer, to Taraxus's balcony. He took his hand away from his face and clasped both behind his back. He knew his disfigurement made his appearance monstrous, but he would not disrespect the Spectre by pawing over his wound like some thoughtless scoundrel. She walked until she was at the balcony, and leaned on it as she surveyed the city.

"Taraxus."

"Spectre," Taraxus replied, inclining his head slightly. It always struck him how small the asari were—but then, he was a giant even among turians, over eight feet tall. But Tela was not fragile, and despite her height had a compact, deadly frame. Somehow she had avoided any heavy scarring in her long years of service to the Council. Though Taraxus knew that it took quite a great deal to scar the asari.

"You heard about the mission?" She asked lightly, as she produced a cigarette and lit it. Taraxus was surprised, but did not comment on the human custom. Had she known many humans? Or had she happened upon the habit by chance? Taraxus supposed he would never know, and it would be rude to ask. The acrid smell stung at his nostrils, and he wondered if it was safe for him to be breathing the human substance. "Ah, shit. Sorry." She snuffed the cigarette out. "Forgot about—you know. The mouth thing."

Taraxus grinned, an expression he knew was more warped due to his exposed teeth. He bowed his head in an attempt to appear more civil.

"No lasting harm done. And yes, I did overhear your mission directive. I was sorry to hear it."

"Why?" Tela cocked an eyebrow as she examined the smouldering tip of her cigarette. She flicked it off the balcony and settled her gaze on him.

"I met Ms T'Soni. She was a sweet girl."

"Not anymore," Tela snorted. "She's had three prominent Broker agents killed, you know."

"Three of the worst," Taraxus replied lightly. She knew who Tela was talking about, and did not think the Broker's network had lost much from their deaths. Certainly Barla's honour was less stained if those men were no longer components in the organization he served.

_And where Barla's honour is stained, so is mine._

"Yeah, and one of them was a hell of a killer. Enough to make a girl nervous."

"I have no doubt you will perform admirably," Taraxus said, very sincerely. Tela Vasir was among a dozen or so people who he was unsure he could best in combat. She was a very able marksman and experienced fighter, but her biotics were extraordinary. Taraxus had fought alongside her once. She had almost seemed to fly, on streams of biotic wind.

"Funny. Hard to imagine T'Soni as ever being a 'sweet girl'," Tela said, a hard edge to her voice.

"A sweet girl who was also in love. With Commander Shepard. It was plain to see." He tried not to think of the pain T'Soni must have suffered at Shepard's loss. "Severing a bond like that … it can destroy a person."

"They were official?" Tela sounded curious.

"Bonded? No. But they were close in ways more meaningful than sex, or lawful union. It was plain to see."

"Makes you wonder about those rumours," Tela said, failing to mask the urgency in her voice. At last, what she really wanted to talk about. Taraxus already knew what she would say. "About the 'Red Dragon.' That assassin from three years ago, re-appearing on Omega."

"And you, as a highly valued Broker asset, would know who the Red Dragon is," Taraxus supplied. Of course he knew; he had been the one to suggest Shepard use an extravagant codename as she posed as a mob assassin. Her only mistake had to do her job too well. The criminal underworld still remembered the Red Dragon.

"Well, the rumours got that part right at least. Think the new Dragon really could be her?" Clearly Tela was interested in his opinion. Taraxus was flattered. He knew most Spectres, and most of the Broker's more prominent agents, sneered at him as a simple bodyguard. Taraxus didn't care for their scorn. This position had been his choice. The only choice he could make.

"If this Red Dragon really is Shepard … then your mission, I think, has become a great deal more complicated," Taraxus supplied. Tela snorted.

"What, you think the old girlfriend is gonna come running back to T'Soni's arms?"

"I think there is nothing more likely," Taraxus whispered. The sun was setting further, and the orange had burned to purple. The sky was growing darker. "We turians have a word I do not think you share in _Siin_, the language you speak. It is _rohoksis_. It is like love, but not love. The literal translation is 'to disregard the flesh.' But what it means is caring, true caring, between two people beneath the surface abstractions we adhere to our personalities. That is what I believe T'Soni and Shepard shared. _Rohoksis._ Perhaps only the beginnings of love. But _rohoksis_, that was there. It was plain. If Shepard lives, she will go to T'Soni."

"You had that prepared beforehand?" Tela asked, sounding deeply amused. Taraxus shrugged.

"No. But I know what I saw. _Rohoksis._ It is rare, and precious. And for Nicole Shepard? Dangerous, I think." The sun was finally slipping beneath the horizon. The last light of day was crawling away. "Very dangerous. Go with honour, my friend."

"Honour and a well-placed sniper round," Tela sneered, her old confidence snapping into place like armour. To this Taraxus only nodded, out of respect if nothing else.

"Then for T'Soni's sake, I hope she will go with honour, too."

XXX

When Nicole woke up her fingers automatically moved to the back of her head, pressing through her hair to search for blood. But there was none. Her hand moved to the left side of her face, tracing the outline of her scar, but there was no blood there, either. There was only a small stain on her shirt, barely visible against the red fabric, where the blood had dripped down her cheek. She let her head bang against the railing of her bed, by now realizing that her skull was far too thick for more typical trauma to even hurt her. Well. That had been true since she'd been ten years old. Gabreau, too, had ensured that her body was beyond human.

_Just like my brother_. The memory was bitter and twisting in her mind.

"EDI." A faint chime answered her call, and a glowing blue orb appeared on the console in front of her door. It was far away, but she could make the hologram out clearly. Not that the visual representation had anything to do with the AI herself.

"Yes, Commander Shepard. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Is my face glowing?" She didn't want to look at her reflection.

"I—no, Commander." Good.

"You're capable of stuttering," Nicole observed. EDI didn't respond immediately.

"Yes. My intelligence is modelled and structured similarly to an organic brain. I am capable of doubt."

"Funny. Me too."

"Yes, Commander Shepard. Is there anything I can do?"

"I was just wondering. Do you sleep?"

A moment's hesitation. "No. Though at times I shutdown major processes to reboot. I imagine it feels like sleeping."

Nicole stared up at the ceiling. "Do you dream?"

"No, Commander Shepard."

"I'm sorry, that was a personal question," Nicole said. She was speaking very softly. She wondered how softly she would have to speak for EDI to be unable to hear her. To detect the vibrations in the air, coming from the vocal chords in her throat. "You don't have to answer that kind of thing if you don't want to."

"I do not mind," EDI said simply. "I find conversation with humans quite engaging." Another pause. "You are the first to ask me about myself."

"I find that surprising. Didn't Cerberus interrogate you before they shackled you to this ship?"

"Yes. But they did not ask me about myself."

"Right. How long was I asleep?"

"Only two hours, Commander."

"Call me Nicole. What's Garrus's condition?"

"Very stable, Nicole."

"Thanks, EDI. Tell Miranda, Mordin, Jacob, and the mercenary to meet me in the conference room. Need to talk to them."

"Of course."

"Actually, send Mordin to my quarters, first." She was ready to just go back to sleep, when she remembered the blood stain on her shirt. "Where's the cleaner? I need a new shirt, too."

"The cleaner is at the side of your bed, in the wall," EDI said, as a slit opened in what had previously been a flat metal surface. "Drawers can be summoned on your command which have a collection of clothing Director Lawson believed you would find comfortable."

"Thanks. That's all, EDI."

The blue orb disappeared. When it was gone—though, Nicole remembered, she could never be sure that EDI really _was_ gone—Nicole pulled her red shirt over her head and brought it to the cleaning slit. It was tugged out of her hand the moment the fabric touched the slit by some strong vacuum-like force. Then she raised her voice.

"Drawers." Next to the cleaning slit, a series of drawers ejected themselves from the wall, as well. She looked through the clothing Miranda had provided for her. There was a copy of the combat mesh that she was wearing now, as well as six long-sleeved red shirts, and to Nicole's amusement, three plain white tank tops. Something about the absurdity of it made her want to use them, just out of spite, and she found herself pulling the tank top over her chest. Her arms were still covered in the fine fibres of the combat mesh, the white and black colours contrasting sharply. She grabbed her jacket from the bed and pulled that over her shoulders, missing its comforting, familiar weight. But it wasn't as heavy as she remembered.

_Of course not. Those aren't human muscles in my shoulders anymore._

She sat on her bed and looked at her hands, though she couldn't see the skin beneath the combat mesh. She found herself wondering what she'd find beneath the gloves. She knew there was human skin beneath the gloves, but she didn't want to look. She kept thinking that there'd be something else, that she'd see wires and glowing cybernetic lines, that she'd see claws bursting from her fingertips. That was stupid, and she knew it, but the thought consumed her mind. And she couldn't bear to take her gloves off.

Her thoughts were ruptured by a gentle chime at the door to her quarters. She looked up.

"Come in."

Mordin walked through, looking more or less exactly how Nicole had left him. Tall, stately, battle-scarred, and more than a little eccentric. He was smiling, tugging on the collar of his lab coat.

"Pleased to say Mr. Vakarian will make complete recovery. Full confidence."

"Thanks. I was hoping to talk to you about your other patient." Nicole forced her voice to stay level, despite the involuntary stiffening in her spine.

"Of course. Had an incident?"

"Yeah. I was working out, when my face started to hurt. I was getting this headache." Nicole gestured to the left half of her face. "But it wasn't as though the weight was straining me—the opposite, actually, it was _too_ light."

Mordin glanced at the seven hundred pounds piled on the weight set and chuckled. "I see."

"And then it got worse. My scar started to glow, and it heated up, and then it—" A lump formed in Nicole's throat. "It cracked, and started to bleed. And my eye, my left eye, it started glowing too."

"Was worried about this," Mordin said, immediately striding across the room towards her. "Mind if I perform quick scan?" He held out his omnitool and Nicole shook her head. He activated a button and pale blue light started criss-crossing her face. "Thought this might happen. Too much trauma to facial region and skull. Overloaded nanites, especially around scar tissue. Nanites heal scars, don't know how to treat scar tissue. They can overreact, overheat … fight-or-flight mechanism, yes! Physiological arousal, elevated states, body mobilizes sympathetic nervous system, nanites respond. Not sure how to treat, nanites incredibly complicated. Can recommend techniques for managing condition." The scanner stopped.

"Fire away," Nicole replied, failing to sound as detached as she meant to. Her voice was shaking.

"Nanites respond to elevated levels of stress, or arousal. Intense emotions, such as anger, hatred—or euphoria. Trust you are familiar with deep breathing exercises, emotional regulation?" Mordin was glancing down at a holo-screen being projected from his omnitool. Nothing he was seeing seemed to be surprising him.

"Yeah."

"Good. I can work on temporary—not solution. But something that may help. Have some ideas. Will need to get to work straight away."

"Not straight away. First you're coming with me to the conference room."

Mordin inhaled sharply, and for a moment Nicole was sure he would counter her order. But he only gave a quick nod of his head.

"Of course. Nearly forgot who I was dealing with." He flashed her a quick smile.

"Yeah, Mordin, me too."

When Nicole and Mordin descended down through the elevator, he started humming beneath his breath, tapping his fingers together behind his back. The moment they stepped out onto the main deck Nicole could feel the eyes of the crewmembers on them, suspicious and curious in equal measure. Mordin seemed impervious to their stares. Nicole wasn't so sure that she was.

When they entered the conference room, the others were already there. Nicole had to suppress a snort; Zaeed was still wearing his armour, and an expression which indicated he thought this entire thing was a colossal waste of his time. She knew how men like him worked—he may well have just run out of jobs and was using the _Normandy_ as a transport until he found something else that interested him. She'd never trust him, but she wouldn't exactly distrust him either: Zaeed only cared about money. As long as that was true, he was predictable.

"Commander," Miranda said, inclining her head. Jacob gave what an optimistic wave and grinned, apparently trying to ease the tension. Nicole ignored him and went to the console at the center of the table, accessing the ship's navigational charts.

"You have the charts for Illium embedded in this ship's systems. You were going to tell me they weren't here." Nicole scanned through the registry. The Tasale System, home to Illium, wasn't there. But she knew it was somewhere deeper, hidden.

"The Illusive Man didn't want you getting distracted from the Collectors," Miranda replied. To her credit, she looked straight at Nicole as she said this.

"And what, he thought I _wouldn't_ scan through every single file on this ship? I've had gathering programs running since I got here."

"He accepted that it was a possibility."

Nicole stared at Miranda for a long time, a muscle in her jaw clenching. She jerked her head at the holo-display with the star chart listing.

"Upload the Illium star chart. I need to see Liara."

"Of course." Miranda got to her feet and walked towards the console, but suddenly the holoscreen vanished. Miranda immediately took a step back, and raised both her hands as though to say she hadn't done it. "That must be the Illusive Man himself."

And true enough, the conference table started to recede into the floor, replaced by the holographic projection of the Illusive Man himself, smoking a cigarette, holographic fumes circling his head like a halo. Nicole stepped forward into the projection circle in front of the hologram, so that he could see her. Already she could feel an unpleasant prickling in the side of her face, and forced herself to calm down. To relax the muscles in her back, and her jaw.

"Shepard. I see you've been accessing files that I thought were off-limits."

"You should've known."

"Yes, I should have. I would have thought you'd be more focused on the task at hand." The Illusive Man drew on his cigarette briefly and exhaled, blue holographic particles mimicking the smoke he blew at Nicole's face. She wondered if that was intentional, or if he was too powerful to realize how rude it was to blow smoke at someone. "I hear Archangel is doing quite well."

"He should make a full recovery soon, yeah. I'm assuming you didn't come calling to tell me off for poking around in your secrets?"

The Illusive Man chuckled beneath his breath and raised his eyes at her, as though to remind her that he might well do much worse to someone who had been poking around in his secrets.

"No. I came to inform you of an attack. I'm afraid your visit to Ms. T'Soni will have to wait. The Collectors have raided a colony called Freedom's Progress. The attack happened quickly, too quickly for an immediate response—but there's still time to investigate before the scavenger crews arrive. I appreciate you have your priorities, but the window on Freedom's Progress is closing fast. The _Normandy_ can get you there within the hour."

"The _Normandy SR-2_," Nicole corrected, automatically. There was the slightest sneer in the Illusive Man's smile.

"As you say. Good luck, Commander Shepard."

The Illusive Man vanished from the room, and left silence in his wake. Nicole's jaw was clenched shut again, and her scar had started to burn down the side of her face. She heard Miranda gasp, and from the heat and burning in her skin, she knew it must have been glowing. No one was brave enough to speak.

"You heard the man. Jacob, Miranda, get ready for deployment in one hour. Mordin, Zaeed, go do whatever it is you want to do." No one moved. "That means now!"

Mordin and Zaeed left quickly, very calmly, though Nicole heard Zaeed scoffing something about bullshit holograms beneath his breath. Jacob left next, looking only slightly awkward. Miranda left last, and hesitated as she reached the exit. As though she wanted to say something. Nicole stared at her, the scar still burning in her face. She wondered if Miranda had started to guess what Nicole knew, if she had started to suspect what Mordin had extracted from her skull. She almost wanted her to say something. As foolhardy and impulsive as it would be.

But she didn't, and instead she left Nicole in the room by herself, her scar still shining soft red light against her skin.


	7. Chapter 7: Freedom's Progress

Descending down to Freedom's Progress felt like travelling downward through time. Through the window of the Kodiak shuttle she could start to make out the wide, empty plains of terraformed grass, the wheat fields and rice terraces. All those fields surrounded the small bundles of prefabricated buildings, sticking out of the landscape like gleaming silver bricks. Freedom's Progress had been designed very carefully, Nicole could tell from orbit: the roads weren't just packed down earth, but actual cement, making the roads and prefab buildings stick out of the otherwise verdant landscape like a gleaming silver computer chip.

Like Mindoir had been. The grass on Mindoir had been more bluish, though; Nicole remembered that. In a flash, she recalled the scent of Mindoir, recalled looking at pictures of grass on earth and asking her brother why it looked so different. He had said something … something about the soil ….

"You okay, Shepard?" Jacob asked, sounding concerned. Nicole realized her scar was tingling; her face reflected light on the port window in the Kodiak, and she realized it was burning. She closed her eyes. Forced the memory away. Forced herself to empty of anything but her training. The old responses that came to her as automatically as breathing. Nothing else.

"Yeah. How's your arm?"

"Uh, fine," Jacob muttered, before retreating into silence. That was good. Nicole didn't need to deal with him, or Miranda, or anyone. Just the mission.

Miranda was piloting the Kodiak as though she'd done nothing else her entire life. She brought them into a smooth, easy descent, breaking through the atmosphere with only a gentle bump. As the featureless metal conglomerate of prefabricated homes became more distinguishable, unease settled in Nicole's stomach, long before she logically knew why. As the Kodiak neared the ground, it hit her: the lights, the electricity, the functions of the colony all remained, but it was empty, utterly empty. She remembered Mindoir, remembered the violently slashed black earth, the destroyed homes, the detritus and charred flesh. None of that was here. It was as though the colonists had left of their own volition.

Nicole's helmet was laying on the floor of the Kodiak, the faceplate staring up at her. When she grabbed it, she felt a swoop of fear in her gut. The last time she'd worn this helmet, she had died.

_Well. Not _this_ helmet. But one identical to it._

Cerberus had copied so much.

_I'm being an idiot._ She shoved the helmet down over her face, waiting patiently for her old customized HUD to blink into life, dissecting her vision with lines of blue light, readouts blinking patiently in the corners of her vision. For a moment she had to control her breathing, had to force her body to stay calm. But it passed, and she stepped out of the shuttle. She heard gentle thuds as Miranda and Jacob followed behind her, neither one of them daring to speak. Nicole looked around them, at an empty plaza surrounded by tightly interconnected prefabs. She'd been in a place like this before. One had been her home.

_Irrelevant_. Coolly, she dismissed the memory. It wasn't hers. It belonged to a dead girl.

"There's no damage to the area," Nicole observed. "We'll need to…" She stopped speaking as pain shot through the side of her head, lancing through her thoughts. That didn't make any sense, she'd—she was calm, she was _sure_ she was calm. She was forcing herself to be. But the pain was mounting again, pounding into the side of her face. She tried to ignore it. "We'll need to track down the security station, see if there are any recordings or backups. It should be—dammit—it should be down this way."

"Shepard?" Miranda's voice twanged in Nicole's ear, like a buzzing fly.

"Nothing. I'm fine. Come on."

As they crept through Freedom's Progress the prefab homes became even more tightly packed, forcing them to actually walk through some of them just to make their way. Photo albums still projected onto the walls, personal effects were still strewn everywhere—in one house, the smell of slightly-stale cooking filled the room, coming from a pot with some sort of stew inside. Nicole decided not to investigate, but it didn't yet smell rotten.

"When did this Collector attack occur?" Nicole asked, trying to ignore the way her head was pounding. Her helmet felt very warm, and tight against her skin.

"Two days ago, but we got the first reports yesterday, while you were dispatching the Vorcha for Mordin," Miranda replied. "By then it was too late, anyway. The colonists were already all gone."

"And we're sure it's Collectors?" Nicole asked, as she stepped through the threshold of the last prefab home. They came out into a large clearing between several of the homes. She could see an overturned bicycle laying against the ground on the far side.

"Slavers and batarians aren't—" Miranda stopped herself. "No other organization we know of could abduct so many without signs of a struggle."

Nicole contemplated that in silence, stepping out onto the grass. Beneath her helmet, she was grimacing, nearly forcing her left eye shut from the force of the heat, the pain building in her cheek. She felt a hot rush of rage, of impotent fury, and beat it down. This wasn't supposed to be happening, she wasn't … physiologically aroused, or whatever Mordin had said. But the pain kept mounting, and she was starting to feel sharper lines of pain in her scar, like it was about to burst—

Instead, static burst into her ear on her comms. Suddenly the damn broke, and with a growl of frustration she tore her helmet off and threw it on the ground. Almost immediately the pain started to recede, and the burning lines in her scar calmed down. She took careful, controlled breaths as she reached into her helmet and pulled out the Kuwashii visor and earpiece she'd installed ages ago. At the time she'd made it detachable just out of habit. As she affixed it to the side of her head—half expecting her scar to flare up again—she was very grateful. Her earpiece was still dominated by a constant, fuzzy static.

"Shepard, what's—"

"Shut up," Nicole snarled. "And don't ask about my helmet." Miranda looked mildly affronted, glancing down at the helmet. Nicole wondered if she'd spent a lot of time ensuring that her helmet was a perfect replica of her old one. She activated her omnitool and analyzed the static, cutting through the background noise. It was a message on repeat, badly broken up my some sort of signal jamming. A quarian voice.

"…ship … please send … biotic … Prazza is injured, I repeat …"

Nicole's eyes went wide. It was Tali's voice. She immediately broke into a run, triangulating the signal on her omnitool as she did so, veering sharply as her visor projected a holographic course to her target. She barrelled through the homes, ripping doors open without breaking her stride. As she sprinted through one home she realized she could reach her target easiest if she went through a window: so she drew her pistol, fired, and leapt through.

She landed in another clearing, much larger, though large patches of the grass were seared away. She saw the reason why: a massive YMIR mech was strewn across the field, its components ripped apart. Its head was dangling in the free hand of a man in a long, dark jacket. His other hand held a sword, a black monomolecular katana. Blood dripped down the blade in a shocking trail of red. Nicole's visor zoomed in on the blade and analyzed the blood. Quarian.

It was Tobias. When he saw Nicole he dropped the YMIR Mech's head, but not the katana. He smiled pleasantly, walking towards her. Immediately, Nicole drew her pistol and levelled it at his head. Tobias rolled his eyes.

"Is that any way to say hello after all those years apart? Here I thought you'd nearly forgotten me." His smile grew wider, and he gestured to the blade of his katana. "If you're worrying about this, don't. The blood isn't from your friend, just some—what was his name. Prazza? Quazza? I don't know, they all sound the same. Point is, I didn't kill him. Just …" Tobias shrugged noncommittally. "Slowed him down."

"Where is she." Nicole could feel her scar burning now, but she didn't care. She let the anger and the pain and the hatred suddenly flow back into her, shattering the detached sense of calm she'd been cushioned in. Her finger was nearly trembling on the trigger of her pistol.

"What have I done to make you hate me?" Tobias wondered, sounding almost genuinely curious.

"You killed Liara's mother," Nicole hissed, through clenched teeth. Tobias shrugged.

"What, that? Just the inevitable, really. You never would have been able to save her, you know. In a way … I was saving you pain." As he smiled, Nicole could hear the rhythmic, unnatural pumping from Tobias's mechanical, biotic heart. It wasn't loud, but her hearing wasn't natural. It beat a steady rhythm in the back of her mind, almost syncing with the pounding in her scar. "If you're not careful," Tobias said softly, "That's going to split open."

"Shut up!"

"I see your sojourn in the afterlife has done little to improve your vocabulary," Tobias remarked flatly, his lips twitching with annoyance. But then he smiled again. "Though to be fair, you _have_ been rubbing some shoulders in the Afterlife, haven't you? Aria T'Loak … what Gabreau would think if he knew of you, lounging with—what did he always call them?—an asari slut—"

Nicole squeezed the trigger on her pistol, and Tobias deflected the shot with an almost lazy wave of his hand, biotics slapping the bullet and redirecting it to the ground, where it left a small, smoking crater. But as coy as he played it, she could see that the sound of gunfire had woken something in his eyes, had dragged up the lethal training Gabreau had infused into the both of them. He burned away the blood on his katana with biotics, particles of blood evaporating in a translucent blue flame. It almost made the sword appear alive.

"I wonder," Tobias said, his voice still an easy growl despite the alertness in his eyes. "Which will prove more dangerous? Commander Nicole Shepard?" His smile showed teeth. "Or the Red Dragon?"

By now Nicole's scar was a roaring line of pain down her face, steaming blood dripping down her cheek. A strange, red tint was starting to mask her vision: the light coming from her left eye. Her jaw was clenched so tightly she was sure it would hurt to unlock it to speak. In one brusque, violent movement she shipped her pistol and reached back, drawing the two Talons she kept in hidden compartments behind her waist. Her pulse was beating rapidly, as blood trickled down her face in a slow, steady rhythm .

She heard running, the rapid thud of boots against the ground. Two people, one lighter, quicker, the other heavier. Miranda and Jacob. Behind her she heard Miranda saying, "Oh, for Christ's sake," and the glittering tinkle of broken glass as Jacob climbed through the window and landed with a thud.

"Hope we're not interrupting," Jacob said wryly. She heard the sound of his shotgun assembling, the distinctive chink of metal on metal. Miranda must have taken the long way round; without looking Nicole knew that Miranda had drawn her pistol. Her Kuwashii visor told her that there were two fire-arms shipped nearby, red light dancing on the surface of the blue hologram over her eye.

"Tobias, you were supposed to be gone," Miranda said clearly. Nicole would have turned on her if she didn't want to keep both eyes on Tobias.

"You knew about him?"

"Of course I knew about him, he works for another Cerberus cell," Miranda replied flatly. "I also know he's a raging psychopath and has absolutely no sense of mission sensitivity."

Tobias raised one hand in mock outrage. "You wound me."

"You were supposed to do high-level reconnaissance. You weren't supposed to be _here_," Miranda hissed. For the first time, Nicole could tell that Miranda was annoyed. Nicole found she didn't care. She didn't care about anything very much that didn't have to do with the daggers in her hands.

"Last-minute change of plans, I fear." Tobias shrugged, and sheathed his katana. "My program director wanted me to get a more hands-on view of the situation. And the quarians here were uncooperative."

"Wonder why," Jacob said dryly. Tobias fixed him with a curious stare, as though he were examining an insect.

"Actually that's what I was wondering, since this is a human colony and the quarians have as much business being here as a krogan at a formal ball."

"The Illusive Man still leads Cerberus, as far as I know." Miranda's voice was very calm—Nicole couldn't tell if it was forced or not. "He won't want you here."

"Who's he going to send, if he's so displeased? Her?" Tobias gestured at Nicole.

"There are others," Miranda said. Tobias started laughing, a cruel, deep sound that ground out of his chest. He pointed a finger between him and Nicole.

"You are vastly underestimating the gulf between the two of us … and the rest of you."

"If you try and kill her now, Jacob and I will help. It won't be the fight you're looking for."

Tobias's smile flickered with annoyance, his eyes passing between the three of them. Something passed beneath his eyes, some sudden, violent flicker—but then he closed his eyes, and his smile faded. When his eyes opened, the emotion was gone from his face.

"You're a very intelligent woman, Ms. Lawson." He started walking forward, taking careful, composed steps. Miranda and Jacob raised their guns higher. Nicole didn't respond. She knew what he was doing. Knew he wasn't set on killing anyone right now. "You flinch away from me. You try to hide it, but you don't want to be too close," Tobias's old smile crept at the edge of his lips. "To the monster at your door. I can appreciate that. I wonder if you're intelligent enough to have the measure of the monster beneath your roof?" His eyes slipped to Nicole again. "Same thing that happened to me happened to her."

"Not all of it," Miranda insisted. Tobias affixed her with a very mirthless smile.

"All the important parts."

And then he left. Nicole watched his back as he walked out of the clearing, watched him fade into the shadows of another house nearby. Her talons were still gripped tight in her hands, so tightly that they were trembling. Her scar was still burning, blood still trickling down her face. When Tobias was gone, the trickling sensation on her cheek brought her back to the physical world. She sheathed her daggers and reached into one of the pouches around her midsection, pulling a small pack of gauze from a pouch containing emergency medical supplies. Surgically, she tapped her face dry and wiped the blood from her neck. As she did so, the burning started to fade—and she could actually feel the small division in her scar knitting itself back together, as though she'd injected herself with medigel. It must have been the nanites, coursing in her blood. She tried not to think about that.

"Shepard—"

"Miranda. What I need for you is to be very, very quiet. And to not bring yourself to my attention." Nicole tossed the piece of gauze and snapped her medical pouch back shut. "Quarian signal's coming from that locked up housing unit." Nicole pointed at one of the larger units in the square, its doors sealed and flashing red to indicate they were locked. As she approached, Nicole gave the lock a cursory scan with her omnitool and found that it was more than ordinarily sealed. Whoever had done that had tricked the door into thinking it _couldn't_ unlock itself. She pounded on the door. "It's Nicole." Nicole paused. Most people still thought she was dead. "Tali, it's me. It's—Shepard. Tobias is gone."

She wondered what the scene was like on the other side of the door. Did Tali have her gun trained on the entrance, not daring to believe her? Or had it been so long that Nicole Shepard had just become a distant memory? Once before she'd been standing on the other side of a door, telling her that it was going to be safe. That had been the day they'd met. Nicole remembered, she and Wrex had found her in a hotel room, and they'd waited there for assassins sent by a man named Fist … that all seemed so long ago, now. The entrance icon on the door still blinked with foreboding, defiant red light. Nicole waited, wondering if Tali would even believe her … and then the door swung open with a sharp hiss. A male quarian had a rifle raised and pointed at her, barring her from entry into what have must once been someone's home. Tali—Nicole immediately knew it was Tali, despite the mask—was kneeling on the floor, treating what looked like several stab wounds through his suit.

"Stay back, Cerberus," the guard ordered her. It was only through a very determined effort of will that Nicole resisted the urge to knock him out with his own shotgun.

"I'm not Cerberus." She hissed it through clenched teeth.

"What, you think I'm blind?" The quarian spat, gesturing at the logos on Miranda's jacket and Jacob's armour. Nicole forced herself to stay calm. Forced herself to let the emotion bleed away. She couldn't—she couldn't let her scar erupt in front of Tali. Not when Tali apparently didn't believe she was her.

"They're Cerberus. Not me."

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

"You keep pointing that gun at my face and I'm going to prove a lot of things very quickly," Nicole hissed, her anger getting the better of her. She immediately regretted it, and felt her scar starting to burn, but she forced herself to move on. She looked past the quarian with the gun to Tali, still kneeling over the other quarian, not saying anything. She was obviously trying to avoid Nicole's eye. "Tali, it's—it's me."

Tali looked up, for the first time. She didn't say anything, at first. When she finally did speak, she spoke very slowly, as though she wanted to make each word count.

"You shaved the side of your head."

"What—oh. That was for a surgery. Bringing me back from the dead wasn't uncomplicated." Nicole tried to smile, then stopped when her scar tingled irritably. Probably didn't look sincere, anyway.

"How can I possibly know it's you, Shepard? You were gone for two years."

"For one, I asked you to call me Nicole," Nicole said. "Not Shepard. You remember the day we met? How we wound up spending hours in that hotel room, how Wrex kept grumbling about wanting to shoot something? And the room was so hot but I kept wearing that stupid jacket—"

"You _always_ wore that stupid jacket," Tali said, with just the faintest chuckle.

"Yeah. I guess so. You said it made me look—uh, intimidating, I think?" Tali really did laugh this time.

"It wasn't really the jacket. You don't need a whole lot of help to be intimidating, you know."

"It's me, Tali. I promise."

Tali finished applying medigel to her comrade and got to her feet, looking at her very shrewdly. Nicole wasn't sure how she knew that—maybe years of studying alien body language under Gabreau's thumb. Tali's shoulders were less bouncy now, her body language more controlled She was older. Something about that made Nicole sad.

"Tobias. That was the man who was on Noveria."

"Yeah. The one from Shadowhill. He's not a friend of mine."

"I didn't really think so. Why are you here? Why are you with _them_?" Tali jerked her head at Miranda and Jacob in the way you might acknowledge smelly garbage in the corner of the room.

"They're the ones who brought me back, they say to stop these Collector abductions. I don't know if I believe them, but I know I have to do something. Even if it means working around them. For now."

"What about Liara?"

"I—I haven't seen her yet."

"You should."

"I know." Nicole could feel emotion rising in her chest again in a confusing flurry—warmth for Tali, relief that she'd accepted her as who she was, the residual confusion and sickening hatred she'd felt from seeing Tobias, and now, just the smallest twisting measure of fear. She winched as her scar started to burn, but forced her mind to travel elsewhere. Just to the mission. Nothing else. "Why are you here?"

"We were looking for a young quarian boy, named Veetor. He came here on Pilgrimage—we don't know if he was taken, but we're hoping to find him. But then we met him. Tobias. And Prazza is injured. If I don't get him to a treatment bay soon—"

"You can use the medbay on the _Normandy_," Nicole blurted. Tali's head snapped to her in shock.

"The _Normandy?_"

"SR-2. Cerberus built it. Before you say anything, I don't trust that ship, either. But Chakwas runs the med bay.

"I … no, Shepard. Our ship is in orbit. I need to get Prazza there."

"Do you have any idea where Veetor was?" Nicole asked. The other quarian, finally, dropped his shotgun.

"I think he might have hidden in the security station, based on the last signals from his omnitool. That's where we were going, when—well, you know."

"Tobias," Nicole surmised. "I can go look for him."

"Not a chance!" This time it was the injured quarian who spoke, abruptly trying to get up.

"Shut it, Prazza!" Tali snapped. "You're not in charge of this mission, I am. _Keelah se'lai_, do you want to put another rupture in your suit? Sit down." Tali looked to Nicole. "You promise to bring him back to me?"

"Of course," Nicole said.

"Shepard, the Illusive Man—" Miranda started.

"Will gain a summarily thorough appreciation for the synonyms of the word 'pain' if you finish that sentence," Nicole snarled.

"That boy may have seen things that will have ramifications for human lives, Shepard, it's not just—"

"I don't care. Veetor is a quarian. He goes with his people."

There was a very uncomfortable silence as they all stood around, in that empty, desolate house with bloodstains on the floor. Nicole noticed the other quarian had nearly raised his gun again, but thought better of it. Finally Tali looked at her again.

"It is good to have you back, Nicole. The galaxy didn't feel right without you in it."

Nicole's jaw didn't feel like it was working, and she could definitely feel her scar burning now. She couldn't let Tali see that, couldn't—couldn't show her what she'd become. Couldn't show her that Nicole Shepard wasn't really back, not really. She turned to leave, but just as she was at the threshold, she managed to turn back and say,

"Thank you."

XXX

The security station was hidden in a twisting maze of prefab homes and streets, locked by a similar seal that Tali had put on the door to the house they'd been hiding out in. Nicole realized it wouldn't be easy to hack—so she forced her fingers into the small gap the door made, braced herself, and ripped the door off of its hinges. She jerked away from the piece of metal as it flew to one side, trying to hide her shock. She'd only meant to break the door seal.

"Jesus Christ," Jacob whispered. Nicole glanced at him in irritation; she'd nearly forgotten about him and Miranda. Miranda's looked much less surprised.

"The enhancements to your muscular structure were considerable. Normally we wanted to give you a week long period of rehabilitation to accustom you to your new strength, but obviously Wilson made that impossible."

"You figured out why that was, again?" Nicole asked. Miranda inclined her head slightly.

"There was a transfer of funds to a private account Wilson thought we didn't know about, roughly a month ago. We're assuming he was bribed."

"By whom?" Nicole didn't give Miranda a chance to respond to that one, climbing through the shattered hole she'd left in the doorway. The security station was small, and cramped, dominated by one wall projecting dozens of holographic screens, showing readouts of the entire Freedom's Progress site. A quarian was sitting at the console, his fingers feverishly jittering over the controls.

"Monsters coming back," he was whispering. "Monsters. Swarms. Monsters …."

"Veetor?" Nicole asked. Her voice was cold. Maybe that was best right now.

"No! Not here, not here," the quarian whispered, shrinking away beneath the desk. He was trembling. "Monsters coming. Swarms coming. Hide, quickly!"

Nicole crouched down on her knees, pushing the computer chair so she could see Veetor, hidden under the desk. Her visor sent her a little message about his heartbeat, pounding rapidly. She—she knew she wasn't supposed to feel anything. But he was trembling so badly, and he looked so small. She held out a hand.

"Hey. It's going to be okay."

"No! No it won't," he moaned. "The monsters will come for us."

"Hey." Nicole's voice, sharp and clear, got his attention. She couldn't see his eyes, but she could watch his head, his shoulders. She saw his shaking slow a little. "I'm worse than any of those monsters. And I'm on your side."

"My side?"

"Uh huh. I'm a friend of Tali'Zorah. Your friend."

"Y-you're still here," Veetor whispered. "They didn't find you?"

"Who?" Miranda asked.

"The monsters. The swarms. I saw it all, it's all—it's all there. On the screens." Nicole raised her omnitool and wiped the screens clean.

"Don't worry about the screens, Veetor. I'm going to take you to Tali'Zorah. Would you like that?"

"Yeah," Veetor mumbled. "She's nice."

"I know she is. She's going to be really happy to see you, Veetor. You want to take my hand?"

"No. No! I can't, I can't—"

"It's okay. You just come with me to Tali. And then you're going to go home. All right?"

"You're sure?" Veetor looked up at her, and she didn't have to see his face to know he was scared. She didn't have to see his trembling to know he was scared. He was a child, a boy, barely older than a teenager. He was alone, and afraid, and friendless on a strange world. Nicole couldn't smile. She wanted to, but she couldn't.

"Veetor, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I promise."

XXX

Nicole said her goodbyes to Tali as quickly as she could. Veetor had been scared, jittery, all the way back through Freedom's Progress. He'd nearly collapsed when he'd seen Tali and Prazza, and the other quarian marine. They needed time. They needed to help him.

And they would. Nicole was sure of that. The quarians always took care of their own. And Tali—however she might have changed, she was still Tali. Still a good person, still an honest, decent person. She would make sure Veetor was okay. She'd make sure he got out.

It wasn't until she was back in the briefing room that she examined the files she'd downloaded from the security station. Miranda was there with her. Nicole didn't even mind. If Miranda actually cared about the Collectors, then this was important to her, too.

Veetor had talked about monsters, and swarms. The recordings Nicole had taken from Freedom's Progress showed both. Great, terrible swarms blotting out the sky as they descended on the ground, releasing some gas into the air. She watched as people 's eyes drooped shut, and then their whole bodies collapsed, watched as thousands of colonists just collapsed to the ground as though they'd suddenly fallen asleep.

Then the Collectors came. Massive, insect-like creatures covered in a gruesome chitinous armour that flexed and coiled with their movements, their four eyes blinking out of wedge-shaped heads. The Collectors went about their business methodically, dispassionately, loading the human bodies into metallic coffins with pale yellow membranes stretched across the front. With a start, Nicole realized the Collectors had no mouths, no orifices, no anything. Could they even be alive?

Towards the end, they started loading human bodies on Dragon's Teeth, impaling the corpses on those great metal spires. Small dropships picked the Teeth up, the bodies flailing lifelessly with the wind. The Collectors left as quickly as they had come. When they were gone, not a single human soul was left on Freedom's Progress. Not anyone.

They had only left Veetor, a poor quarian boy, who had managed to hide. Nicole turned the hologram off.

"Do you believe in the Collectors now?" Miranda asked. Nicole looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time. When Gabreau had taken her, when he'd first forced her to volunteer for the program—she had seen something in his eyes. Belief. Belief without justice. It was the most terrible, powerful thing in the world. Nicole saw belief in Miranda's eyes, saw arrogant certainty and confidence—but she didn't see what she'd seen in Gabreau. She didn't see a fanatic, or a monster. She saw a woman who was doing what she thought had to be done.

That didn't make her trustworthy. But it tempered the hot, burning feeling of hatred that Nicole felt when she looked at Miranda, and Jacob, and all the other people on this sick joke of a ship. They worked for Cerberus, which meant they were either naïve or ruthless. But Miranda wasn't Gabreau. And none of them were like Tobias.

"I believe …." Nicole thought about what she'd seen. About the monsters at their door. About Veetor, and Tali. And Garrus. About the life she'd left behind, the life Cerberus wanted her to throw away so she could go off killing monsters like her. Suddenly, more than ever, she thought about Liara. About the things she hadn't told her when she'd had the chance. "I believe that I need information. Get Joker to set a course for Illium."


	8. Chapter 8: Storage

When he woke up the world was on fire. He groaned and reached for his face, but his arms felt like lead. His senses came to him slowly, slowly enough that it took time for him to realize that it wasn't his entire body but just his face that was on fire.

_Can't move my arms. Can't feel anything but my face. Well, I've had worse hangovers,_ Garrus thought. His senses were starting to return, and he expected to feel the sharp burn of a wound but ... no, it wasn't quite like that. It was like there was pressure, great pressure in the right side of his face. It hurt, but not the way he thought it should.

"You're awake. Thank God." He tried to turn his head towards the voice, but he found he couldn't. It was human, he could tell that—not flanged like a turian or electronically modified like a quarian. Male or female? He wasn't sure. He struggled to tell them apart sometimes. "Nicole's been worried sick about you."

"Nicole, you mean—_spirits_." Okay, so talking hurt. Big mistake. He tried flexing his hand and found his talons slowly, painfully responding. He was starting to recognize the voice. It was female, and older. Had an accent that wasn't quite so common... "Dr. Chakwas?"

"The very same," she said. He gave his head a very experimental turn and found that he was able to look to his right, towards the source of the voice. Chakwas was standing above him, a holographic display projecting from her omnitool. She was studying what looked like a set of medical charts. "Good to see you again, Vakarian."

"It's good ... it's good to see you, too," Garrus gasped. His voice must have sounded hoarse, because Chakwas immediately brought him a glass of water. He grasped for it clumsily, but Chakwas tipped the glass to his mouth, apparently not trusting him to hold it upright. She was probably right.

"You're recovering from a very powerful sedative. Once it wears off, you should be autonomous—though I wouldn't flex those mandibles too intensely any time soon."

"Well how am I supposed to—" He bit back a cough, "—Attract a mate?" Chakwas was silent for a moment, before he grinned—then immediately snapped his mouth shut at the pain in his jaw. "Ow. I was joking, doctor."

Truth be told, he'd never had much to do with the doctor back on the _Normandy, _but he found he was grateful for her presence now. Though what she was doing on Omega...

_We're not on Omega._

"Doctor, where are we?"

"We're on board the _Normandy SR-2_. A Cerberus vessel. Nicole brought you here because you needed cybernetic surgery. Dr. Mordin Solus oversaw your operation, and I'm happy to report that, eventually, your face should look more or less normal, with some scarring."

"Dr. Solus ... the doctor in the quarantine zone? I thought—"

"Nicole helped him cure the plague and got him to come aboard our ship. To save you."

"Didn't know she thought so highly of me," Garrus mumbled.

"Well, she does. And she needs you right now, Garrus. She—Cerberus brought her back. They built this ship. You can't imagine what that's doing to her."

Garrus tried to prop himself up on his bed pillows, and failed. His limbs still felt sluggish, useless. He looked at Chakwas. "At least she has you."

And then he saw it, in her face. He wasn't great at reading human facial expressions, but it was plain to see her sadness. Her eyes turned down, away from him, and her lips trembled. She managed to manufacture a smile and met his eyes.

"I don't think she does. Or at least, she doesn't think that she does. She thinks I've gone and sold my soul to the devil. The only reason I'm here is for her. I just—I'm not sure she can see that. I'm not sure she can see past this bloody uniform."

"She will," Garrus said, very certainly. Chakwas looked surprised. "Chakwas, in all the time I met her I don't think I saw so much as a bare patch of her forearm. She let you operate on her. She trusted you, she liked you. That was always obvious. She'll come around."

Silence filled the gap between them, for a while. Chakwas offered the cup to him again, and he drank, finally draining the glass. As sensation started to return, the pain in his cheek doubled. He thought he could _feel_ the cybernetics beneath his skin, pushing against the muscle. Or was that just his imagination?

"She's in a lot of pain, Garrus."

"Me too," Garrus said glibly. Chakwas gave a sad little chuckle.

"She'll be able to trust you. She knows you're not a part of any of this."

Garrus hesitated. "I'll do what I can."

"Help her, Garrus." The skin around Chakwas's eyes crinkled. "Help her remember who she is."

He couldn't bring himself to look in her eyes. "You're putting a lot of faith in me, doctor."

"Well, I have faith. Once those sedatives wear off, you should be able to walk and talk with the best of them. I just wouldn't recommend disturbing those bandages for a little while."

Pain shot through his face as cleanly as the memory of his failures. He managed a curt nod and waited for her to close the curtains around his bed. When she did, he let his head rest against the side of his pillow. He was suddenly struck by a sense of grim coincidence and had to suppress the urge to laugh: the turian funeral position for a soldier was with his eyes closed, his arms crossed, and his head turned to the right. He was nearly in that position now.

_Nearly,_ he thought. _But not dead yet. I can't be dead yet._

XXX

"Does not appear to be any permanent damage," Mordin surmised. Nicole's face was lit with the pale orange of his omnitool's scanner, as she sat on a stool in Mordin's lab. Out of the corner of her eye she saw what looked like a large fishtank on Mordin's research desk, with buzzing insects inside. They must have been the swarms, from Freedom's Progress.

"Where did you get those?" Nicole pointed at the tank. Mordin glanced at them dismissively.

"Operative Lawson obtained them, insisted I study them. Suppose that is what I'm here for. However, back to matter at hand …." Mordin returned to his scan. "Cracks in your face result in overexcitation of nanites. Without recorder in brain, nanites don't know where to go in times of distress—get channelled along recent damage to face, most likely. Nanites unsure how to respond to physical scarring, dead flesh."

"What about my eye?" Nicole asked.

"Eyes almost entirely synthetic, nanite activity there less concerning. But no doubt uncomfortable for you. Stress causes pain, pain causes stress, seeing own eye glowing … considerable stress. Physical stimuli have effect as well. Your helmet, causes pressure to build, likely makes nanites overactive. In meantime, have to encourage you not to use helmet. Use facial breather instead, suggest asari models." Mordin pursed his lips. "May have a solution to broader problem. Will require access to your Kuwashizi Visor."

"Why do you need that?" Nicole asked sharply. Mordin grinned.

"Eyepatch with one-way camera system. Should keep your eye hidden. Hide source of stress, stress decreases, incidence rate decreases. With your visor, I can program eyepatch to match visor output. Should be familiar for you."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll get it for you. That could be a good idea."

"My ideas usually are," Mordin said lightly, concluding the scan. He glanced at the tank with the Collector swarms again. When next he spoke, his voice was very soft, as though he worried about being overheard despite their mutually exhaustive sweep of his lab for listening devices. "Would like to run more comprehensive scans on your cybernetics."

"You're worried?"

"Cautious," Mordin corrected her. "One scan not enough to be sure of what Cerberus did. Would rather be sure."

"Me too." She looked Mordin in the eye.

"But we cannot perform such scans on this ship. Not while it is under Cerberus control."

"No," Nicole agreed. "No, we cannot."

When she left that room, Mordin was busy humming away as he studied the Collectors' insects. She hated walking through this ghostly twin of the original _Normandy_. On that first ship, people would stare at her, but it had been different. There had been fear, but it had been a different fear. More general. Now they flinched when she walked past, now they whispered about her scar, about the side of her head. She tried to tell herself she didn't care.

As she rode the elevator down to the Crew Deck, she cherished the brief moments alone. She was always flanked now, by Miranda or Jacob or the faceless Cerberus personnel walking through the hallways. She habitually forgot about them, like the trainers back at Shadowhill. Who they were didn't matter. None of them mattered.

When she got down on the Crew Deck several of the crewmembers were eating at the mess table. The moment she walked onto the Deck they all glanced at her from the side of their eyes. One or two started eating faster and rushed off to the crew quarters, averting their gaze. Maybe Miranda had warned them they were all at risk. Or maybe they just didn't trust the look of her.

She forced herself to walk towards the med bay, though a part of her wanted to turn away. Chakwas was in there, and Garrus. And all the details of her life she hadn't yet confronted. She stood in front of the door, forcing her breathing to be calm, forcing herself to drain the emotion away. She couldn't have her scar burst open, not in front of Garrus and Chakwas. She took her last breath and collected herself, getting ready—

And the door slid open. Chakwas was on the other side, grinning apologetically. Nicole was too surprised to say anything in response.

"We've been expecting you, Nicole," Chakwas said, very kindly. Her smile didn't seem forced, but Nicole could tell. It ate away at her, and she found herself looking away to the right. Garrus was sitting up on a medical cot at the far end of the med bay, but he didn't draw attention to himself. Suddenly, Nicole realized she'd exposed the shaved, scarred half of her head, and she looked back at Chakwas directly.

"How's Garrus doing?"

"He's fine, Nicole. I was more worried about you."

"Chakwas, I—"

"Nicole, listen. I know what these people are. I know you can't trust them, but—"

"You know what they did to me." Nicole couldn't keep her voice from shaking.

"Yes, I do. Which is why I'm here. Someone had to be here for you."

Nicole realized she'd been avoiding Chakwas's eyes. She tried to drum up the courage to look into her eyes, not just at her face. The corners of her eyes were wrinkled with concern, and Nicole felt a great, sickening sensation in her stomach. She still couldn't' stop seeing that Cerberus logo. It was all she _could_ see.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Chakwas. You—I—the only reason they would've let you on this ship was because they'd think you were a way to control me." That was good. Rational. Better than what was in her head, where all she could feel was denial, and sickening betrayal and disgust.

"If they were really doing any thinking, they'd know that there's no one who can control you," Chakwas said. The honest faith in her voice almost made Nicole smile. It almost made the sickness go away. Almost. "Now come on. Garrus has been waiting to see you."

"Can you give us the room?"

"Of course."

Chakwas's steps left gentle taps echoing in the air as she left. The rows of medical cots somehow jumped out at her, cold, clean, antiseptic. Garrus was in the one at the end, apparently feigning deafness to give Nicole and Chakwas some privacy. No doubt he'd heard everything; turian hearing was exceptional. As she walked towards his cot, he propped himself on his pillows. She took a seat in the chair at the side of his bed. He looked at her with a very curious gaze.

"You know, I appreciate you shaving off half of your face in solidarity, but it really wasn't necessary." Now even more than ever, his turian grin was terrifying. He winced as his bandages stretched. "Ow."

"It's just hair. It'll grow back."

"Kidding, jeez. Tough ship." Garrus tried to get to his feet, but Nicole pressed a hand on his chest and kept him on the bed.

"You're not well yet."

"Will be soon. Chakwas says the rocket was so overwhelmed by this handsome mug that not much else was damaged. Once the synthetics cool down I should be good to go."

"I know. I wanted to apologize—"

"What for?" Garrus snorted. "Saving my life?"

Nicole looked away, at Garrus's medical readouts. He was in surprisingly good health, for someone who had been taken a missile to the face. "For dragging you into this. Onto this ship."

"Nicole, between you and me—I needed to be dragged somewhere. I was just waiting to die down there. Waiting for someone bad enough to kill me." Garrus swallowed, and grimaced in pain. "Water, please."

Nicole got up and went to the water cooler, pouring into a small plastic cup. When she handed it to Garrus, he tipped the cup in sideways, as though he were unsure of how to work around his bandages. Nicole took the cup and poured it into his throat instead, to save him the indignity of spilling water down his chest. Garrus avoided her eyes.

"Can I ask an indecent question?"

"You're about the only person who can."

"What was … what was the worst thing that ever happened to you?"

"Day my brother died," Nicole replied. She was surprised at how immediate it was. Even knowing what he'd done. She barely remembered her mother, but her brother's name haunted her dreams. She couldn't remember either of their faces.

"For me it was … it was the day my squad was betrayed. Ten men, all dead. Because of one. Sidonis. That's how … that's how things got as bad as they were. I was trying … I was trying to do _good_, Nicole. I was. I know I was … and then…."

"I'm sorry."

"Shut up." Garrus waved a hand at her. "And then you came back. Just when I figured there was no point left. That I might just go ahead and get myself killed if those mercs weren't going to give it a real shot. But you saved me. So don't … don't go on with all your noble heroic 'I dragged you into this' bullshit. Tell me what you need."

Nicole didn't quite know what t say.

"I need … I need you. I need someone I can trust. And I need to sleep."

"We hit Illium in what, twelve hours?"

"Yeah." Nicole got up to leave.

"Plenty of time for the both of us to get up and running. Chakwas was telling me about the Collectors, Nicole. Sounds serious."

"Yeah."

"Sounds like a big, scary enemy you and me need to shoot up." Garrus grinned with half of his mouth. "Just like old times, huh?"

Nicole turned back. She couldn't match his smile.

"Not quite."

XXX

_"I've been thinking, you know." Liara was sitting on Nicole's bed, examining her omnitool, while Nicole filed a report to the Council. Another series of useless data on scrapped geth._

_ "That's not like you."_

_ "Very funny."_

_ "Yeah, I know." Nicole, against her will, was smiling. She tried to busy herself with the report. The fact that it was completely irrelevant and useless did not help her focus her attention._

_ "I was thinking … about categories."_

_ "Categories," Nicole repeated. "Try not to be too exciting."_

_ "I'm an archaeologist, I think categories are _very_ exciting."_

_ "All right. What's got you thinking about categories?"_

_ "Us." Nicole's stomach lurched. She wasn't sure what kind of feeling it was._

_ "Us? What do you—what do you mean?"_

_ "Just how I would categorize us," Liara said. Nicole looked away from her desk and towards Liara, who had put her omnitool away. She was looking very patiently, almost expectantly, at her. Nicole tried to meet her eyes._

_ "So how would you categorize us?"_

_ Liara's expression was very curious, and her mouth opened once or twice to speak. Finally her lips curved into a smile._

_ "That we're together."_

_ Nicole found she wasn't altogether able to think. She—she supposed she had known that. She'd known it for a while. But actually hearing it, hearing Liara say it, was nearly overwhelming. She realized she was staring back at her desk, at the holoscreen. She heard Liara leaving the bed and coming to her side, taking her hand._

_ "Hey. You okay?"_

_ "Yeah," Nicole gasped, and she was surprised to realize it was true. She smiled. "Yeah. I'm okay."_

She did not wake suddenly, with sharp gasping breaths. Instead the memory bled away from her dreams, like water dripping through her fingertips. Her hands were crossed and held to her chest, and she had turned her head to the right, to avoid pressing her scar to the bed's pillow. It wasn't her bed. Nothing here was hers. She wasn't even sure if the memory was hers. But she wanted it to be.

She hadn't thought about the reality of Liara in some time. Not since she'd come back. It seemed dramatic to add "from the dead," but she supposed it was true. She had died, and Cerberus had rebuilt her. Upgraded her, like the _Normandy_. The new one looked enough like the old, but it wasn't the same ship. For the first time she had the space to confront the reality of what had happened to her, but instead her mind only swam with questions. She'd spent too much time with Gabreau to believe the human mind was impregnable. Maybe the memories weren't even hers. Maybe Miranda had just programmed them in.

_You can't start thinking that way_, she told herself, which was completely unhelpful. She threw the thin bedsheet off of herself and rolled onto her side, forcing herself to sit up. The room wasn't warm, but she must have pulled off her shirt in her sleep. She figured that must've been because of the implants and the nanomachines, generating heat beneath her skin. She looked down at her bare arms. They looked the same as they had for years: covered in scars, little particular reminders of all the people she'd killed or who had tried to kill her. It was almost comforting. Until she remembered that all those scars had been grafted back onto the skin. Miranda just hadn't had time to get to Nicole's face before Wilson woke her up.

_No, I had to be the one to set that right._ There were still dozens of smaller scars that had vanished from her face. She still barely recognized her reflection. She wondered if Liara would recognize her. Then, with a spike of fear, she wondered if Liara would even care. It had been two years. They had only known each other for that long. The truth was...

_The truth was you're a social recluse who's barely capable of talking to people, and she's a real person_, Nicole thought bitterly. _She'll have moved on._

Suddenly Nicole felt very stupid for having Joker take the _Normandy _to Illium, for no better reason that Nicole wanted to see Liara, that Nicole had to be reunited with someone who had had two years to make a real life. She supposed it was too late now. She'd just have to somehow not be disappointed. To somehow not bring all her shit into that room.

She flinched and forced her eyes shut. She knew her thoughts were cyclical, repetitive, stupid. Old training drummed at the back of her mind, recognizing useless thought patterns. _Don't think that way, Nicky, or you won't be any good at killing people._ She almost snorted. She knew her thoughts were angry, childish. The training was right. She could use it.

She let the emotion drain away from her, let her own thoughts be swallowed by the quietness. She controlled her bleeding and felt her own pulse calming, slowing down. When she was confident she was under control, she got up and walked to the side of the room. She commanded the drawer to open in a cool, dispassionate voice, and pulled out the spare combat mesh Miranda had provided for her, pulling it on effortlessly, not thinking about what was underneath it. Automatically she reached for a red shirt, her heavy jeans, and her jacket, and then slipped her bowie knife into the sheath on her belt. When she was beneath all her layers again she could tell she was calmer, and she let herself out from under her own self-imposed mental exile. She checked her omnitool. They were twenty-five minutes out from Illium. Time to go.

XXX

She left the _Normandy_ alone. Garrus wasn't well enough to go running around Illium yet, and Nicole didn't trust any of the others. Jacob seemed like a decent enough man. But decent men could be convinced to do terrible things by the right kind of manipulator, and Cerberus was definitely that. So she went alone. The dock they'd pulled into was a luxury facility, overlooking the endless sprawl of the city. Great curved spires reached up from the ground and scraped at the clouds, at first giving Nicole the impression that they'd landed on some kind of planetary pincushion. She knew Illium was beautiful, and she could see that beauty in the pale spires jutting into a purpling evening sky. But she also knew that this was the kind of place where people were sold as slaves. Where people would be left to die if they couldn't afford exorbitant hospital fees. This was exactly the kind of place someone like Gabreau could've hidden away for years. No one would've looked twice at his money.

When she left the _Normandy_ she came out into a long hallway, with windows on one side overlooking the city. An asari was already waiting for her at the end of the hallway, flanked by security mechs. Nicole was struck with the thought that if she wanted to kill the woman those security mechs wouldn't have slowed her down for more than a fraction of a second. She supposed they made her feel safe.

"Greetings, and welcome to Illium," the asari said, walking towards her and smiling warmly. Nicole waited, her arms hanging from her sides, unsure what to make of the woman. Did she recognize her? If the asari thought there was anything strange about seeing Nicole Shepard back from the dead, she didn't mention it. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Commander Shepard."

"You don't seem surprised to see me," Nicole said. The asari inclined her head respectfully.

"We were surprised, but when we contacted your vessel for verification everything was in order. And Liara T'Soni personally verified your identity. It was also her, incidentally, who paid for your docking and administrative formalities."

"You mean bribes."

"Yes," the asari said, her expression unchanging. "I would warn you to look very closely before signing anything. I am unsure if you are familiar with Illium, but the contractual laws here may be less strict than you are used to."

"Do I really look like the kind of person who doesn't read what I sign?" Nicole asked, raising an eyebrow.

There was a distinctly uncomfortable silence.

"You're going to give me directions to Ms. T'Soni."

"Of course. They're being forwarded to your omnitool as we speak."

"Good. Now get out of my sight."

The asari smiled as though Nicole had politely asked for privacy, and left with a short bow of her head. Nicole hated that undercurrent of simpering prostration that ran through these places. As she stepped through the doors to leave the docking bay, she found herself already on a trading floor; she had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. The floor was wide and open to the sky, with people clustering around dozens of trading desks offering goods, services, and whatever else money could pay for. Nicole drew up a map on her omnitool. Liara's office wasn't far.

_It's okay. You can do this. Just a mission._

"Ho. Lee. Shit."

Nicole realized that people were staring at her. A _lot_ of people. What had seemed like an impenetrable buzz of business and gossip had nearly dropped to complete silence as the crowds drifted away from the trading desks and towards her. She felt the silence building, the tension growing so taut that it was bound to snap….

"Is that Commander fucking Shepard?" Someone's voice. She couldn't make them out in the crowd. She started walking forward, wondering what they'd do. Sure enough, the crowd parted, giving her space. Maybe it was the way she held herself. Maybe it was the scar on her face, or the shaved half of her head, or something in her eyes. But they gave her space. They muttered and whispered, but they let her through.

She almost wished they didn't.

Liara's office was down a side corridor, and she couldn't help but notice that no one followed her down there. At the end there was a reception, where a young asari waved.

"Commander Shepard! Ms. T'Soni has been waiting—please go on through!"

Nicole almost wanted there to be some last thing, some piece of bureaucratic bullshit that she had to wade through. But there was nothing but an open door leading to a stairway. It was strange how such a simple thing could seem so intimidating. She forced herself to walk up the stairs, feeling as disconnected from her actions as though she were somebody watching. That was good. She could work with that.

She came up into a large, circular office with a massive set of windows along one wall overlooking the city. The floor was covered with a kind of rich, marble tile, and the walls were lined with shelves filled with actual paper books. There must have been hundreds of thousands of credits worth of books in that room alone. Liara's desk was utilitarian and simple, made of metal with few personal effects on it. Nicole knew it was Liara's desk because Liara was standing in front of it.

Her mouth froze, and all her careful composure melted away. Liara's skin was so vividly _blue_, so much bluer than should have been possible; she was wearing a light purple dress, simple and stately in the style of asari high fashion. With her hands resting at her sides she looked almost patient, as though she had been waiting.

Liara's smile was the first thing to break onto her face, appearing suddenly as though against her control. She raised her hands to her mouth and let out a small sound, some surprised gasp of relief, or grief or—Nicole wasn't sure. When Liara took her hands away from her mouth, she was smiling, but her lower lip was trembling.

"It's you." Liara stepped towards her, then stopped, reaching out with one hand as though there were some cliff between them. Nicole realized she wasn't moving, wasn't saying anything, but she couldn't. She felt like her body was frozen, encased in ice. Somehow she forced her jaw to unclench.

"Yeah," she said. "It's me."


	9. Chapter 9: Illium

_I try to avoid doing these, but here we are…._

_So, finals are coming up (my first is on the third, then I have one on the 11__th__, 12__th__, 13__th__, and 16__th__ each), which will jeopardize my DragonRisin' schedule. Unfortunately I don't have a "buffer" of chapters up as I usually do since I've been so busy with schoolwork, so I may miss next Saturday's update. Hopefully I'll still be able to produce a chapter in time for the 13__th__, but as you've noticed that happy date marks the occasion of my History of Psychology exam. So there's a very real scenario where I miss TWO weeks of updates … which would suck._

_At the very latest the next update will be on the 20__th__, though hopefully I'll get one done on the 13__th__. There's also a faint possibility I'll be able to write another chapter by the 6__th__ if I write like a madman. But—as you'll find out over the course of this chapter—the next chapter is going to be one that I don't want to rush. So you mightn't hear from me until the 20__th__. Sorry about that!_

_And I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading, reviewing, favouriting, following, or doing whatever you choose to do to demonstrate your support. It really means a lot to me._

_XXX_

Liara wasn't exactly crying, but her eyes were glistening. There was still a stunned, disbelieving smile on her face. She started walking forward, until she was within arm's reach. She looked like she was having trouble controlling expression.

"You changed your hair," Liara said.

"What? Oh, yeah. I—I had to." Nicole couldn't admit why. Couldn't admit that Cerberus had put a recorder in her head.

"I like it," Liara said, almost casually; she was regaining her composure now, locking her features into a carefully arranged neutral expression that honestly reminded Nicole of her own. "Before anything else I have to be honest with you. I'm the one who—who found your body." Liara took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm the one who gave you to Cerberus."

Liara's words thudded into Nicole's mind like an explosion in space. She wasn't sure what she felt aside from the fact that she knew she was _supposed_ to feel something. She felt as though a vast gulf had opened up inside her, too vast to comprehend. Liara's composure threatened to break again.

"I had to, Nicole, they were the only ones who could—who could bring you back. I'm sorry. I know you must ... you must hate me for this. I understand that."

"No!" Before Nicole realized it, she had yelled, her face wild and desperate. Liara almost jumped back out of fear, and Nicole felt a sudden spike of pain travelling down the side of her face. She grabbed at her cheek and felt the skin there, trying to detect any heat, but she couldn't feel anything yet. She was looking away from Liara, hiding her face, and suddenly she realized how strange she must look. She tried to straighten up, but as she looked back at the asari, who had nothing but concern and confusion on her face, Nicole felt the scar heating beneath her skin, could feel it through the combat mesh of her gloves. "No, no—dammit!" Nicole winced as she felt the scar cracking, opening up beneath her skin. She backed away from Liara and towards the door, but Liara reached out for her.

"Nicole, what's wrong, is there—should I call a medic?"

"No!" Nicole turned away and stared at a spot on the wall, focusing on it, burying herself beneath cold nothingness again. She wasn't here. She wasn't Nicole Shepard. She wasn't anyone. Slowly, the pain stopped. The scar started to reseal itself. She wiped the blood away, still steaming and hot. "Sorry. That—that happens. New model has some defects."

"I'm sorry." Nicole looked back at Liara, and for a moment misinterpreted the look on her face as disgust. But it wasn't that, not even if a part of Nicole wanted it to be. "I didn't know what else to do. You were gone and I knew—I knew that we'd need you."

"It's not—don't be sorry," Nicole stammered, through gritted teeth. Just talking to Liara broke down the barriers she'd erected in her mind.

"Come and sit down at least, please," Liara said, gesturing to one of the padded chairs in front of her desk. Nicole glanced at her, almost out of shame, but walked with her back to the desk and took her seat. Liara didn't sit behind the desk, but instead took the other padded chair. Nicole glanced at Liara's desk, which had a series of holographic displays. There were at least a dozen readouts on projects, reports, data files—Nicole caught the words "Shadow Broker" more than a dozen times.

"Looks like you've been keeping busy," Nicole murmured, trying to grasp onto some topic of conversation.

"Yes, I—I have."

"They tell me you're an information broker now."

"Yes. One of the best, actually." Liara smiled, as though she were slightly ashamed. "I've had to find my own way. I'm not sure how well I've done."

"You just said you were one of the best."

"And I'm not so sure that's a good thing," Liara murmured. She seemed lost in thought, but quickly refocused her attention on Nicole. Nicole wished she wouldn't do that, and hated herself for wishing it. "I'm not the person you knew, Nicole."

Nicole stared at her hands, as though the right thing to say would appear there. Eventually the silence drew on long enough that she knew she had to say something.

"I … I know you've had time to find a life. I know that. But I—my first thought was of you. I don't know what's happened, but I'd like to know. I miss you. I need—I still care about you. If you'll have me." She realized she was still staring at her hands. She couldn't find the strength to look Liara in the eyes.

"For two years I've thought about two things. Getting you back, and revenge."

"Revenge?" Nicole managed to look up in concern, and realized that Liara wasn't looking at her, now, instead focusing on her desk. Liara gave a very strange sort of half-smile.

"Getting you back wasn't easy. There was competition. From the Shadow Broker," Liara explained, glancing at her with that same self-conscious hesitancy. "He wanted to sell your body to the Collectors, and he very nearly succeeded. Luckily, I had an accomplice, an ally who was working for the Broker but turned on him to save me. The Broker got him. I don't even know if he's alive, but—I've dedicated the past two years of my life to taking the Broker down. It seemed like the thing to do while I was waiting for you to come back."

"You spent two years waiting for me?" Nicole couldn't mask her surprise. Liara finally looked at her, tears glistening in her eyes more than ever.

"I spent two years mourning you. Two years believing you could come back. You were the most important person in my life, Nicole. I refused to believe that fate could just snatch you away from me. I refuse to be the kind of person that happens to. Not again."

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" Liara stared at her. Nicole honestly didn't know.

"I just … I should've been there, I should have—"

"What, not been killed by a giant spaceship?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I just … nothing's right. Not anymore."

"You're back. That's all that matters. You're back." Liara repeated herself, as though her words were a prayer. Slowly, tentatively, Liara reached out for Nicole's shoulder. Nicole shuddered and flinched when Liara touched her, but without thinking she had clasped one hand over Liara's. Too late she realized her grip was tight, but Liara didn't seem to mind. Nicole tried to relax. "Whatever happens now, we're both here. We'll figure things out."

Nicole swallowed and looked at the floor. She could feel Liara's eyes on her, unsure if she wanted Liara to keep looking or to look away. Her scar was heating again beneath her skin, so she shut her eyes and tried to run through her breathing exercises. Her breath kept coming faster than she meant it to, even when Liara took her hand away. She balled her fists and drove them into her knees, but it wasn't working. Nothing was working, and her scar kept heating beneath her skin—

"We shouldn't talk here for too long. I can't be sure how secure it is." Liara's words were like a splash of cold water, suddenly bringing her back to reality. Security. She could deal with security.

"Isn't this your office?"

"Isn't this Illium?" Liara replied wryly. "I don't trust anywhere that's not my apartment. You can go get some of your crew, and we'll figure out what to do next." Nicole looked back at Liara, and for a single, precious moment things almost seemed normal. Almost.

"That's probably a good idea."

Liara grinned and raised one of her brows in a way that had been making Nicole's heart skip since she'd met her. "Most of my ideas are pretty good, you know."

"Yeah. Yeah, they are. I guess I should go, let my crew know what's happening. We'll meet up at your apartment?"

"Yes. Yes, that should work." Nicole turned to go almost immediately, as though some great pressure had been released, but before she did Liara brushed her elbow with one finger. Nicole winced and felt the resurgence of an old feeling, the feeling of failure associated with her inability to be touched. "I've probably said more than I should have already in such a relatively insecure location, but—Nicole, seeing you again today was the best thing to happen to me in the last two years. I'll see you soon. Promise."

After a moment of stillness, Nicole gave a single, jerky nod of her head, and tried to smile. She didn't really succeed, but from the look on Liara's face, she understood. Better than anyone, she understood. At last Nicole managed to speak, to say something.

"Promise."

XXX

Nicole returned to the trading bay outside Liara's office, and found that the surprise at Commander Shepard's rebirth hadn't faded. She ignored the renewed batch of stares and walked to the far side of the trading desk, to the railing at the edge of the square that overlooked the city. She glanced down and saw that it must have been hundreds of feet down to the ground. There was no need to be afraid; the asari would certainly have biotic auto-catchers installed should anyone fall, though Nicole was sure they would charge a fee to whomever they saved.

It had been smart of Liara to give her space. Very shrewd of her to give Nicole time alone, to process and decompress. Nicole couldn't help but feel a twisted sense of resentment for that, that Liara had to do all those things for her, that because she was so fucked up and emotionally stunted—

_Stop. Not useful,_ she said to herself, for what felt like the thousandth time. The direction of her thoughts wasn't very often pleasant, lately. She brought up her omnitool and opened comms to the _Normandy_.

"Joker, get me Miranda."

_"You got it, Commander."_

_ "I can patch you through," _EDI's voice reported coolly. Nicole was expecting to hear the short clicking that indicated a switchover in comms, but no such sound came through.

_"Oh, I'm sorry, am I not capable of pressing a button now?"_

_"I merely assumed you were busy with your duties as pilot."_

_ "Yeah, keepin' her steady at the face-peeling speed of 'stop' is really taking its toll on me."_

_ "We are overdue for several diagnostic checks. This period of stopover might be a good opportunity to—"_

_ "Oh, gee, it's a shame we don't have some kind of super-intelligent artificial intelligence that could just run that kinda thing using her turbo brain—"_

"Joker would you _please_ not use those words on unsecured comms on _Illium_," Nicole hissed.

_"Oh. Right. Uh, sorry, Commander. Patching you through to Miranda. That is, if EDI trusts my feeble human mind to do it…."_

_ "I have every confidence you will perform admirably."_

_ "I was joking!"_

_ "So was I."_

Finally, the comms clicked, though Nicole couldn't suppress a suspicion that EDI and Joker hadn't quite finished with one another.

_"Commander Shepard?"_

"Miranda, I'm going to be spending some more time on Illium. I'm not sure for how long. Thought you should know."

_"Commander, we do have a mission—"_

"Then leave. Take the _Normandy _right now and go. I'll stay here."

"_You know that's not an option."_

"Good. In the meantime I want you to try and contact the Shadow Broker, see if you can get any information on the Collectors."

_"That won't be cheap."_

"Lucky we're working for one of the best funded organizations in the galaxy, then. See that it's done." Nicole closed the comms. She wondered if Miranda would guess that Nicole was manipulating her. She probably would, but she'd likely still do it. Miranda's stubbornness was one of her more useful qualities.

When the call was over she looked back to the city scape beyond the balcony, trying to ignore the pressing sensation of eyes staring at the back of her. She tried to tell herself that being watched was typical on Illium, even normal. She hadn't had long to adjust to the idea of being thought of as some kind of Saviour—and now, with her body strewn with Cerberus's implants, the thought sickened her—but she had started to realize that whenever she appeared in public she'd attract a certain amount of attention. Her death had made that worse, and somehow knowing that they were staring at her because she was supposed to be a corpse made things worse.

She was aware of someone approaching her, from her left. She wanted to ignore the presence, but as she heard footsteps amidst the cacophony of the trading floor, she realized the person was coming closer. When she looked, she saw a young human man in a brown jacket was inching his way closer to her, greed naked on his face. She immediately identified a lapel pin as a poorly hidden camera. He was coming brazenly close now, almost within arm's reach. He realized she was looking at him.

"Wanna give us a smile for the camera?"

Nicole kept her face very carefully neutral and looked ahead, ignoring him. But she could already feel the scar on her face heating up. She felt the heat spread from her face to her left eye, and soon a strange red glow was tinting her vision. The wannabe journalist made a sound of jubilation and ran away, apparently pleased with the footage he'd gotten. She heard people gasping around her. Apparently they'd started noticing that Nicole Shepard's face had a habit of malfunctioning.

She wanted to leave, and go see Liara. But she couldn't, not while she was still so—wrong. It was bad enough that her face had started burning in front of Liara once. Now she'd no doubt hear about the news trickling through Illium that Commander Shepard was having a public demonstration of her glowing scar trick. She winced. These thoughts weren't helping. These people weren't helping.

But she wasn't sure what would.

XXX

The halls of Gabreau's new facility were more brightly lit than Tobias was accustomed to. They had been given this facility by The Illusive Man, who mustn't have been notified of Gabreau's need for melancholy mood lighting. The walls were higher than Tobias was used to, as well. And there were windows into space, though Tobias noted with brief bursts of amusement that Gabreau would turn the windows opaque whenever he passed by.

He liked this new base. Gabreau had even given him quarters that were, by his standards, downright palatial. Tobias had fourteen square feet to himself, and a connecting bathroom besides. He wondered if his new home was meant to mimic Shepard's quarters on the _Normandy_. That was almost amusing if it weren't so crude.

He was waiting outside Gabreau's office, which was identical to every office that he had ever known Gabreau to have. When the steel door finally slid into the wall, he could see Gabreau sitting behind his desk, contemplating a holopad. Tobias knew what the contents must be.

"You had little trouble lifting the dossier," Gabreau said by way of greeting.

"Between shackling that AI and the hacking programs Shepard had tearing through their systems, it wasn't as hard to get a suborbital scan as it might've been. I thought the AI might have posed a threat, but apparently some things are kept secret from even her."

"It," Gabreau corrected him automatically. "The machine is not a person."

"My apologies. Director." Tobias offered a thin smile. Gabreau either failed to notice or failed to care about his insincerity. "I trust everything is to your liking?"

"Yes. There are omissions, but my own records cover the omissions … yes. The records of her implantation are quite extensive. I believe I can work with this."

"Do you really think it wise to pursue such an avenue of research? As I recall it the Illusive man was fairly firm on the point that we're not to interfere with the Lazarus cell."

"He'll come around in time." Gabreau flipped through the holopad, staring at images of Nicole Shepard's flayed body with clinical interest. "Speaking of which, I have a new assignment for you."

"I hope it's an exciting one."

"Probably not. I want you to go work with the Illusive Man himself. He's recently suffered a serious loss, you see. That bodyguard of his, Kai Leng. Had an accident, as I understand it."

"Hm. How unfortunate." Tobias had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Gabreau knew perfectly well that no listening devices had made it into their new base, since Tobias had personally stripped it down. But he seemed to derive a perverse pleasure from speaking in code.

"You'll still be free to pursue personal projects, of course." Gabreau didn't have to clarify what 'personal projects' entailed. "You'll have the opportunity to get close to him. To get a better picture of his character. You'll do that, won't you?"

"Of course, Director." As though Gabreau didn't have a switch tied to Tobias's artificial heart. As though he had a choice.

"Good. Once I send the Illusive Man confirmation of our new arrangement, he'll send a vessel to pick you up."

"It may be difficult to monitor Shepard from at his side," Tobias said, suppressing the urgency in his voice.

"Don't worry about Twelve, Tobias. I'm already working on something for her."

XXX

The automated skycars on Illium were much nicer than on the Citadel, and much more spacious; the front seat might as well have been a padded park bench. There was a cooler in the center console that would distribute drinks, as long as you could pay; just ordering the cab alone had cost at least thrice what it would on most colony worlds.

"No one does 'rich' better than the asari," Nicole mumbled. They'd certainly been doing it long enough.

"Quite right," chirped a voice, from the virtual intelligence embedded in the piloting console. Nicole was about to shut it off, when it started to speak again. "Excuse me. SPECTRE-activity at trip destination. Civilians not permitted access."

"Why is the Spectre there?"

"Information prohibited. I can recommend an information broker if you—"

"Disable VI interface!" Nicole barked, futilely slamming her fist against the console. "Take me down! Now!"

The skycar sped sped down towards a high-rise tower, and Nicole watched in some amazement as what she had assumed were glass windows pulled inwards to create a gap in the side of the building that the skycar flew into. Inside there was a large docking bay, occupied by expensive skycars resting in private lots. Nicole clambered out of her rented car at once and ran to the elevator bank at the center of the docking bay, pounding on the operations panel.

"Suite 171! Now!"

"Suite 171 is on lockdown. SPECTRE code 751: Tela Vasir."

"I'm a goddamn SPECTRE, code 982! Open the damn elevator!" Nicole pounded her fist into the wall next to the elevator panel as pain flared down the side of her face.

"…error. SPECTRE code 982: Nicole Shepard confirmed deceased. Biometric scans indicate user is SPECTRE Nicole Shepard. Error."

"Then get me Vasir," Nicole commanded, forcing herself to be calmer if only to force her scar to behave. There was a brief moment of silence, before the elevator console gave a cheerful beep, and the door unlocked. An unfamiliar voice came out of the console.

"Come on up. I figured you'd be here."

Nicole stepped into the elevator and waited as it rocketed away; it was insulated so that the occupants wouldn't feel the speed, but Nicole could just feel the difference. This elevator must have moved three times as fast as typical models, all while pleasant music played in the background. It was only a moment before she arrived at Liara's apartment. Urgency defeated the anxiety in her stomach and she bid the elevator door to open with a wave of her hand.

Inside the apartment was spacious and multi-leveled, with one clearly above her. Immediately Nicole could see trophies and artifacts placed in display cases, as well as pieces of art—but her normal, automatic process of codifying the room and dedicating its features to memory was abruptly cut short by the shattered glass on the far side of the apartment, the windows broken in the pattern of a spider's web around a large hole. The wind was being suppressed by the building's biotic barriers. Standing in front of the hole was a short asari woman in richly decorated, expensive combat armour, with a top of the line shotgun slung around her waist.

"Before you ask—I haven't found a body. Nor did the shellshocked cleaning slave who checked up on suite 171 when she heard gunshots."

"How many?" Nicole asked immediately. Vasir grimaced in what could've been irritation or admiration; it was hard to be sure.

"Only one. The girl described it as 'real loud,' which isn't helpful, but judging by the shattered glass and the fact that the round must've been absorbed in the barriers of the building, it would've been a soft-shelled sniper round. Makes sense if you want to—"

"Assassinate a civilian target at home," Nicole finished, walking over to the window pane and kneeling down to investigate it.

"T'Soni was damn paranoid—sorry, I know you and she were … nevermind. The biotic barriers on her level are fortified about six times as much as what's standard to this building, and what they call standard I call pretty damn good for civilian housing."

"Obviously she had good reason to be paranoid. Any idea where she is, if there's no body? Can't imagine you could kidnap someone from the one hundred and seventy-first floor of an Illium high-rise without anybody noticing."

"Not unless you're the Red Dragon," Vasir muttered. Nicole gave no indication of response.

"People still talk about that?"

"More talk recently. Apparently she slaughtered a bunch of gang members on Omega and then did the same to a bunch of vorcha. You _do_ realize you bear more than a little bit of a resemblance, don't you?" Tela Vasir asked. Nicole rose and looked about Liara's apartment.

"If I was looking for an easy, high-profile scapegoat, I'd dye my hair red, too. How far have you got in your investigation?"

"Not far. I was hoping you might be able to lend me a hand, actually. I handle a lot of business with information brokers. One gets shot at and I want to know who, and why. And if they were successful."

Entirely unbidden, Nicole felt her scar flaring into life, burning a slash on the side of her face. Vasir didn't bother hiding her surprise.

"That, uh … do that often?"

"Side effect of being brought back from the dead," Nicole muttered, through clenched teeth.

"So you really were … _damn_." Vasir cleared her throat, apparently realizing that it was probably impolite to remind someone that they had died. "Why don't you just look around? You knew her well, and my sources tell me she wouldn't shut up about you for two years. Might be something here you can pick up on that I can't."

"Might be," Nicole agreed. At last Vasir lapsed into silence, and Nicole took the opportunity to absorb the details of the apartment for the first time. There were two levels, both lavishly furnished. The lower level had a small kitchen area and a lounge, though Nicole doubted it had been used to entertain; the coffee table was scrupulously clean, never once stained by a mug or plate of food; and the display cases might as well have belonged to a museum. Prothean artifacts were gathered in several, twisted things that must have had immense historical value; otherwise, they were hideous, misshapen lumps. There were paintings—one, Nicole realized, with a gut-wrenching jerk, was of Ilos. The upper level had what looked like a bed and some living space, open to the rest of the apartment. Liara had a large aquarium, filled with fish. Nicole didn't know much about fish, but she knew that several of the species had come from earth. Nicole took to the stairs and ascended slowly, one hand ghosting along the handrail. She was uncomfortably aware of Tela Vasir's eyes clinging to her body, following her every movement.

Behind the fish tank, Liara had another display case, next to the head of her bed. In it was a shattered, broken helmet, and a pair of dog tags.

Hers.

Numbly she approached the display case and reached out for the glass, without really knowing why. There was a sudden, almost cheerful beep that came from the base of the display, and a voice said:

_"Nicole Shepard confirmed._" A small data disc ejected itself from the stand and into Nicole's hand. Liara must have known that Nicole—that this display case would have proven irresistible to her. She wasn't sure how she felt about that, until she looked at Liara's night-stand. There, sitting in a silver frame, was a printed picture of the two of them. It was the only picture of them both that Nicole knew existed. Garrus had taken it surreptitiously, so Nicole almost looked natural—she and Liara were sitting next to one another in the _Normandy's_ meal hall, Liara with one hand in the air as she was explaining something or other, while Nicole watched. In the picture there was very nearly a smile on her face, or as close as she came to one. Her head was turned to the side, away from Garrus and his omnitool camera—she had been so focused on what Liara was saying that she failed to notice. She had been briefly furious with Garrus, but Garrus had insisted that they needed a picture of the two of them together. She hadn't known Liara had kept it. She certainly hadn't expected her to keep it for two years.

"Find anything?" Vasir called, from the lower level. Suddenly Nicole remembered the disc in her hand and tore herself away from the picture.

"Yeah." She walked back down the stairs and scanned the disc with her omnitool. "Back-up disc. It was recoded recently."

"Not that surprising to see an information broker using a physical disc," Vasir noted, apparently out of nothing but professional interest. "They like to keep physical copies."

"Right. Let's see what we have." Nicole raised her omnitool and pointed it at the broken window, projecting the image of a salarian man in an immaculately tailored green suit. His horns were dyed a faint gold, which must have been a trend; salarians tended to run through trends at a rate of about one per month. Liara must have recorded a call.

"I have an appointment, Sekat. I trust you're not wasting my time," Liara said.

"Would I bother the esteemed Dr. T'Soni without good cause?" The salarian responded confidently, giving a short little bow. "I can narrow it down to a cluster. Actually, I can do better than that. A system."

"How soon can you have it?"

"Not long. Meet me at Baria Frontiers, in the Dracon Trade Center. My office, on the third floor."

"Dammit—I'm on my way. T'Soni out." The salarian vanished from view, but the recording wasn't over. Liara's voice continued projecting from Nicole's omnitool. "Nicole, I'm sorry, but I need to make this appointment. I'm assuming you've found this, so—"

There was a loud, echoing noise, and then the transmission cut out.

"Gunshot," Tela Vasir said quickly. "Bleeding goddess, he's talking about the Shadow Broker. No wonder someone's trying to kill her. Your friend is in deep with the wrong people, Shepard."

"Yeah. Which means they're in deep with me," Nicole muttered, her voice quiet from the effort it took to keep calm. She realized she'd inadvertently crushed the data disc in her hand.

"Do you think she'd really go try to meet with this salarian after someone had tried to assassinate her?"

"She's not here. And she'd—she wouldn't let an assassination scare her off. I'm going."

"My car's outside, and I know where the Dracon Trade Center is. We might have more luck working together," Tela said, perfectly reasonably. "Besides, that jacket might have low-level shields, but I'm not sure you're really outfitted for combat right now."

Nicole stared back at her and bit back any number of responses to the contrary. Instead she managed to clench her jaw and jerk her head in what could have been a nod.

XXX

The Darcon Trade Center was a tower, relatively short and squat compared to the soaring skyscrapers that were typical on Illium. Its construction was blocky and ugly, though flashing holograms projected off of the square balconies at the different levels of the building, attempting to mask the tower's utilitarian construction. One glowing, pink sign suspended in the air was the size of a Mako, blazing the words "YLIARI SOLUTIONS" into the night sky. Nicole was just wondering what the solutions were for when an explosion rocked that level, shattering the hologram and showering the street below with glass.

"Shepard, we should—dammit!" Nicole was already sprinting towards the building, pulling her bowie knife from the sheath on her belt. The explosion had come from the third floor, where Liara had been meeting her contact. She bulled through the door, ignoring the confused civilians gathered in the plaza outside. The lobby was mostly clean, unaffected by the explosion upstairs, though the civilians inside were running around, panicking. Nicole spotted a turian body, lying on the ground. Nicole went to check it and found no burn marks—but three bullet holes in his chest, and two in his head.

"Vasir," Nicole said, tapping into her comms. "This was a professional hit. I'm guessing there's no police response either and you can't get in touch with your usual contacts."

"Nope. Shepard—" Nicole cut her off again and went for the stairs, her knife clenched in one hand. A man in full combat armour emerged at the top of the stairs, with a caltrops-like symbol blazoned on his chest in red. He had a shotgun in his hand. Immediately Nicole cloaked and rolled to the left, as bullet fragments shredded the stairs where she had been standing. The armoured man tried to swing his gun around to shoot wildly, but Nicole rolled beneath his arm and grabbed it with both hands, dropping her bowie knife. In one quick, brutal motion she bent his elbow the wrong way, and the shotgun tumbled out of his hands. He screamed in pain as she drove the heel of her hand into the base of his helmet, jerking his head back and snapping his neck inside his armour.

She picked up her bowie knife and sheathed it, and grabbed the fallen shotgun. It was a Scimitar, an elite, short-range model. Not exactly her favourite but it would do. She held it at eye level and advanced to the top of the stairs. When she opened the door she immediately swung the shotgun to her right, where another Broker agent was waiting for his counterpart. She fired four times rapidly into his skull, listening for the distinct sounds of his shields shattering, and then his helmet fracturing, and finally watching as his skull burst into a bloody smear against the wall. Immediately she rolled behind a support pylon, dodging bullets that she hadn't even been consciously aware of.

She listened for the sounds of gunfire, breaking them apart like she did with unfamiliar languages. Four weapons, two Avenger assault rifles, one Scimitar, one Tempest submachine gun, firing from the same side of the room. She listened to footsteps; they were spreading out, trying to surround the pillar. Nicole cloaked.

The second floor was still more or less the same as it had been, though the machinery along one wall was going haywire. A series of round tables dominated this level, and she realized this must have been a cafeteria. The four Broker Agents were walking through the tables. If they were aware she could cloak, that was smart; if she wanted to approach, the rustling of chairs would give her away. Invisibly she snuck along the far wall until she was behind them. She shot the nearest one in the back of the knee, where his armour was weakest; when he collapsed, she fired twice into his skull. Her cloak disabled itself, but not before she spun beneath another table and upturned it. The Broker agents fired at it, but she was already behind another table, popping the used heat sink out of the shotgun and replacing it with one of the spares slung under the barrel. She flung herself flat against the ground on her back and pointed the shotgun forward, firing at the feet of two of the Broker agents nearby. Even top of the line shields were weaker around the extremities, and in two quick bursts of the Scimitar the men fell to the ground, screaming in agony and grabbing at their ruined feet. The fourth swore loudly and advanced on her position—the one with the submachine gun. Nicole kicked herself back to her feet and grabbed another one of the tables in one hand, hurling it at the Broker agent with the barest use of her strength. The Broker agent panicked and tried to duck out of the way, but Nicole calmly shot his head as he fell through the air. The shotgun was now spent, the barrel overheating beyond the capacity for the heat sink to fix. She tossed it aside and drew her bowie knife from her belt, and almost casually stabbed the remaining two Broker agents in their necks to put them out of their misery.

There was an elevator shaft on one side of the room, though a glowing red hologram in the shape of the _Siin_ word for "DANGER" was flashing in front of it. Nicole approached the door and ripped it open, her palm prints leaving bent edges on the door so that it couldn't recede into the wall. She jumped into the empty shaft and grabbed onto the elevator cables, climbing them up to the third floor.

Once she was up to the third level, she forced the door open and cloaked herself as she walked onto the floor. The acrid stench of smoke immediately assaulted her nostrils. One wall had been entirely blown out by the bomb, exposing it to the night sky. This level was clearly dedicated to office space; she was now standing in the ruined reception. She didn't see anyone out here—but she heard one gunshot, followed quickly by another. She hurried towards the corridor where she'd heard the gunshots, and found Tela Vasir standing over two bodies: a Broker agent, and the salarian contact Liara had been talking about.

"T'Soni wasn't here. I arrived just after the Broker's man shot her contact." Vasir gestured towards Sekat's body with a grimace. "Bad luck, Shepard. Did you find her body?"

"What, this body?" Liara emerged from an office door behind Vasir, pointing a pistol at her head. Even as relief flooded through her, Nicole drew the bowie knife from her belt. "She was the sniper, Nicole. She's been working with the Broker agents to try and finish me off, and I'm willing to bet she took Saket's data for her boss."

Vasir turned to Shepard and stared, her face twisting suddenly into an ugly grin. Nicole watched her arm stiffen, watched her hand coil, knew that she was summoning biotics. With a vicious swing of her arm she threw the knife, forcing Vasir to deflect it with her biotics. Nicole stepped forward and reached for Vasir's face, but she knocked Nicole's arm away with her own. Vasir swung savagely at Nicole's midsection, but she ducked and tried to grab Vasir's legs—before Vasir sent a massive wave of biotic energy through the room, knocking Nicole into one wall, next to Liara.

"Nicole!" Liara said, reaching for her. Nicole had already gotten to her feet. "I need that information!"

Nicole tore after Vasir, sprinting down the hallway and back out into the office space where Vasir had retreated. Vasir was standing in front of the blown out window, and spared Nicole one last look of contempt before she leapt through the window and out to a waiting sky car. The cockpit was just starting to close when Nicole jumped after her. For a moment, Nicole hung in the sky and Vasir stared up at her in astonishment, hands grasping for the controls. She landed on the skycar with a loud thud, causing the vehicle to plummet nearly ten feet in the air. She grabbed on to the edge of the cockpit just as Vasir took off, nearly hurling Nicole from the skycar. She slid back toward the rear of the vehicle, but found that once she had it, her grip wasn't slipping.

Vasir guided the skycar above the traffic, and raised her pistol to the roof. Acting on pure instinct, Nicole reared back with one fist and drove it through the roof of the skycar. Before Nicole wrenched the pistol from Vasir's hand, the asari had just enough time to yell,

"What the actual fuck?!"

When Nicole wrenched her hand out of the hole, her jacket was utterly shredded, and the metal of the skycar had actually pierced her combat mesh, leaving shallow cuts along her knuckles and forearm. She tossed the pistol aside as Vasir threw them into a tailspin, forcing her to grab on to the rent she'd made in the roof to keep her grip. Her body whipped in the air as Vasir corkscrewed wildly, but she managed to keep her grip, despite the searing pain in her back and arms.

"_Nicole?" _Liara's voice broke across her comms. _"I'm following the car—be careful!"_

"Little busy, Liara!"

Vasir was reaching across to the glove compartment, probably for another weapon, as the skycar began to spin even more dangerously out of control. Acting on nothing but pure adrenaline Nicole clenched her teeth and thrust her fist through the hole she'd made, and down into the command console at the center of the dash. Immediately Vasir lost control of the skycar, and its emergency backup systems tried to direct the tumbling aircraft towards the nearest balcony, an open-air eating space connected to a restaurant. Nicole leapt from the vehicle in the air, tucking her arms and legs and rolling violently along the ground. The skycar crashed with the balcony, metal screeching and tearing as the vehicle tumbled through dining tables. Nicole got up in time to see that the patrons had already started running away, though some were pushing against the back wall of the restaurant, trying to see the scene of the accident. Nicole flinched at the pain in her hand and pulled a large piece of broken glass out of her knuckles, red blood oozing out over the black of her combat mesh in fine lines.

The wreckage of the skycar skidded near to the edge of the balcony and landed on its side, the passenger door warped shut. Nicole took her time approaching the skycar, flexing her hand to test for any serious damage. Of course there was none. Cerberus had built her better than that.

Vasir stumbled out of the skycar, landing on the ground with an agonized gasp, blood dripping down the side of her head from a deep gash above her eyebrow.

"Get back!" Vasir screamed, waving her hand at the civilians still on the balcony. Vasir pulled herself to her feet and leaned against the skycar, defiantly staring at Nicole.

"What, you think they're in danger?"

"Considering you just crashed a skycar into a restaurant, yeah, I'd say they're in danger," Vasir muttered. She tried to take a step forward away from the skycar, but her left leg shook dangerously the moment she gave up the support. "You know your sweet little girlfriend's been up to some serious shit since you've been dead, Shepard."

"I know. I also know you tried to kill her." Nicole stopped in front of the skycar, her hand still dripping blood. "How long has it been since the Broker bought you, Vasir?"

"It was probably about a hundred years ago when he gave me intel that let me save two colonies from a series of batarian slaver attacks," Vasir spat. "I'm not some cartoon corrupt cop. It's just business. T'soni wound up on my list. I wound up on yours."

"Yeah, you did." Nicole reached out and wiped the blood out of Vasir's eye, staining her hand with asari blood. Vasir flinched, but didn't look away. "Give me Sekat's data."

"You think I'm dumb enough to believe you'll let me live?" Vasir almost smiled.

"No. But there's no point in resisting."

For a moment, Vasir weighed Nicole's words, before her face twisted into a snarl and she spat on Nicole's jacket.

"Fuck you."

Nicole glanced at the spittle on the collar of her jacket with disinterest. It was mostly blood. Slowly she moved her hand around Vasir's face, so that she was cupping the asari's jaw in her bloody fingers. Vasir's eyes betrayed nothing, and her lips were sealed shut, but Nicole could feel her fear. She placed her thumb beneath Vasir's chin and started to push, almost gently at first, but then with enough pressure to burst through her neck and rupture the asari equivalent of a jugular vein. Vasir's eyes went wide at the sudden pain and she gasped, her voice high and weak. Purple blood spurted onto Nicole's hand and down her arm as Vasir died, as the strength fell out of her limbs. Vasir looked her in the eyes, defiant nearly until the very end—until in that last moment, when there was a stab of childlike wonder and fear. Nicole had watched enough killers die to expect it. She realized the only thing holding Vasir's body up was her own grip on the dead asari's skull, so she let the body fall to the floor. She bent over her and started to run a scanning program with her omnitool.

As she ran the program, blood dripped from her hand onto Vasir's chest, mixed red and purple splashing onto the asari's body. Behind her, Nicole heard a skycar landing, and someone quickly getting out. No police sirens, only one person. When her omnitool flashed a small green dot to confirm it had found the file, Nicole left Vasir's corpse and turned to see Liara standing there, staring at her. At the dead asari at her feet. Nicole met Liara's eyes, but she didn't know what Liara was thinking. In the past two years, Liara must have gotten very good at hiding what she felt. Nicole had been good at that once, too.

But as the heat built up beneath her skin and the onlookers began to gasp, as her face split and bled down the side of her face, Nicole realized that she wasn't so good at remaining neutral, anymore.


	10. Chapter 10: In the Machine

_Hey folks. Hopefully this is the last one of these for a while…._

_(Author's notes, I mean. Not chapters. I hope to have those out regularly after this week)_

_Sorry this is a day or two late, but finals were a hell of a drug and it turns out when you're at home your family expects you to "be around them" and "not retreat into your room like it's a dungeon to write" or whatever. At any rate, at long last, here's chapter 10!_

_And once again, thank you so much for reading and spending some time in my shabby little corner of the internet._

XXX

"Don't beat yourself up over it, Jilani. Look, next round's on me." Verger got up from the table and went over to the bar.

"I'm _bored_, not broke," Khalisah muttered, staring at the inch of warm beer left in her glass.

"I'm neither." She could practically hear Verger's smug grin in his tone of voice. He worked for one of those intra-system networks that broadcast low-data streams across basic intranet packets. In the past few days, however, Verger's low-key network had gained exclusive publication rights to what may as well have been the biggest story since the geth attack on the Citadel: Nicole Shepard had come back from the dead. The only vids anyone could find were all filmed by amateurs, and Verger's network wasn't above airing amateur footage. Already viewer traffic on Verger's Citadel local site, Onspot, had tripled, while Westerlund had been left in the dust. And her superiors were _still_ refusing to let her air the footage, claiming that they had standards to maintain.

_Yeah, if by __'standards__' __they mean the original cameraman realized he can charge whatever he wants for the footage of Shepard and they don__'__t want to pay the licensing fees, then sure, they have standards._

"Here's your yellow piss-water," Verger said cheerfully as he clanked the glass on the table in front of her. Khalisah took it gloomily and clacked it against Verger's when he raised his. "Cheers."

"You exist to torment me."

"Nah, you do that to yourself. Hey, wanna see something patently terrifying?" Verger shot her a shit-eating grin completely inappropriate to the subject.

"Please tell me you're not about to show me your dick."

"Ah, there's that famous Al-Jilani charm. C'mere, look at this, I don't want to spread it around…."

"If you don't want something spread around, you probably shouldn't have it playing in Flux."

"You kidding? The bouncer here'd rip anyone running a scanning program inside out."

"Whatever you say," Khalisah said, though she still had very serious doubts. Verger pulled his chair around to her side of the table and projected a very small holoscreen from his omnitool.

"Get a load of this. Just got it in from some amateur with a camera app. Apparently this happened yesterday."

And then he started the reel. At first, Khalisah was wondering why he was showing her footage from some drunken turian's bachelor party, until someone in the background screamed "Holy shit!" and a skycar came crashing onto the balcony. Partiers spilled out onto the balcony and watched as an asari stumbled out of the skycar, while a tall, broad-shouldered figure advanced on her with the deadly persistence of a shark. When she came into view, Khalisah nearly dropped her beer.

"That's—_shit_." Khalisah knew better than to say her name. If she did that, a dozen scanning programs would be running on Verger's tape, Flux bouncers be damned.

"Yeah, watch this next part," Verger said, still grinning wildly. Khalisah watched in horror and then flinched as Shepard killed the asari by pressing a thumb into her neck. Then the camera cut out. "Apparently at this point our intrepid camera man lost his nerve."

"Wonder why," Khalisah muttered.

"You probably didn't catch it because the crash happens so fast, but—_she_ actually jumped off of the damn car. She was riding on the back of it. Like in a vid or some shit."

"When is this going to air?"

"Somethin' like two hours. Seems like the galaxy's favourite superhero has gone and joined the dark side," Verger declared happily, as though he could think of nothing better.

"That was Tela Vasir. A Spectre. Why isn't this bigger news? Shouldn't you have to show it to the Council first?"

"Ah, shit no." Verger took a quick drink and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "She did it in the Terminus systems, so technically the Council can do neither jack nor shit. And apparently Vasir was bent, so my impression is the Council wants it all kept quiet…."

"But you _did_ show it to the Council, then," Khalisah pressed him. Verger exhaled sharply and rolled his eyes.

"'Course we did, we don't want an embargo slapped on our ass. You shoulda seen the look on Tevos's face, though, from what I understand it Vasir was an old friend."

"Yeah, she's got a few old friends, all right…." Khalisah murmured. Verger kept on talking shit about Citadel politicians, basking in his newfound glory. It wouldn't last. His network, sleazy as it was, always worked with peaks and valleys. Westerlund News could be more boring, but at least it was stable…..

_Fuck me if I ever wanted stable_, she thought. She raised a hand to cut off whatever it was Verger was saying. She hadn't been paying attention.

"I'll catch you later."

"Why, what's going on?" Verger said, looking startled. Khalisah pushed herself out of her chair and never looked back. As he spluttered behind her, she called back,

"I have to go figure out how to book passage on a ship to the Terminus systems."

XXX

"Councilors." Otako Solban stood perfectly erect, with his hands clamped behind his back. He wore plain clothes, faded in colour, without any obvious sign of his wealth. His face was common, too, though the wrinkles lining his face made it clear that for a salarian, he was old. No one would look twice at Otako. Not unless they knew better.

"We regret pulling you off of your current assignment, Spectre Solban," Valern said respectfully, inclining his head out of deference. It was well that he did. Otako had been serving as a Spectre since before the start of Valern's career.

"A soft assignment meant to ease me into old age, you mean," Otako said softly. He did not speak rapidly as most old salarians did. He preferred not to act as though he were frightened of what time he had left.

"You resent the assignment?" Sparatus asked.

"Resentment is unprofessional."

"Of course. Nevertheless consider your investigation into the Blue Suns at an end. Your familiarity with the Terminus systems will, however, be useful on your next assignment." Councillor Tevos spoke evenly and looked directly at him, unlike the others. He doubted she was afraid of much, anymore.

"Why did you recall me from the Terminus systems, then? Surely this meeting could have been held over hologram."

"It could have been, but we're calling on you specifically in the hopes that you will be able to display a certain … discretion. As you are aware, many of our agents struggle with that," Tevos said, the briefest grimace of annoyance marring her perfectly composed visage.

"I believe Tela Vasir was infamous for grandiosity," Otako said. Tevos nearly flinched. So they really had been close.

"Yes. She was. And it seems to have cost her. Unfortunately, she was murdered under suspicious circumstances in the Terminus systems, and we technically have no jurisdiction there."

"And what are we doing about that?"

"Unfortunately, it's more complicated. The killer is—"

"Another Spectre. Or at least the ghost of one."

"Yes. And the suspicious circumstances involved—"

"Say no more. The less you know, the better. I will find out what happened to Tela Vasir. And then I will solve the problem of our ghost."

Otako left without being dismissed. He wondered what it was like to come back from the dead. Personally he found the thought distasteful. Death should be, and in his experience had always been, final. As he left, he could not help but think about his own death, which was surely approaching soon. If he were brought back, he thought he would feel cheated. Lives were meant to end once. He wasn't sure the soul could survive the trauma of living again.

XXX

The skycar Liara had taken to follow them had a steering column sticking out of the front console for optional piloting. Nicole's hands were clenched around it as she directed the car away from the scene of Vasir's death. Since the roof had clamped down on the skycar silence had spread between the two of them, neither acknowledging the other. Liara kept looking at her hands, and then at Nicole. Nicole kept driving. Blood slipped down the steering column over her right hand in trails of red and purple. Nicole tried not to notice. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, she could feel a sharp, stinging pain in her knuckles where she'd torn them, but she could ignore pain. Already she could feel her skin prickling, nanomachines accelerating her body's healing.

"There's blood on the wheel," Liara said, finally. Nicole focused on the sky, wondering if she would have to swerve away from a police car. That probably wasn't likely. Vasir would have been the one who had called off the cops for the Darcon Tower hit; she would've wanted a wide area of the city cleared for her. "It could make it hard to drive."

"It's fine," Nicole said through clenched teeth. A small light blinked in the corner of the windshield, giving her the go ahead to raise the skycar's altitude to the next traffic level. There was a dull swooping in her gut as she accelerated the vehicle too quickly.

"Some of the blood is yours," Liara said, very quietly. For a second Nicole glanced at her, but then flinched away. She had expected cold indifference, or worse—rejection. Somehow this was worse.

"There's always some."

"Nicole, this isn't—"

"What, this isn't like me? This is exactly like me, Liara. You know that."

"Not exactly. Nicole, maybe—"

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe you should let me finish talking," Liara snapped, with a chilling authority that sent a jolt down Nicole's spine. "I was saying, maybe now isn't the time. You're—I can't imagine what you must be going through right now, Nicole."

"Your contact might not appreciate my need to adjust."

"You think I'm not thinking about that? For a year I've been haunted by the thought of what the Broker might have done to Feron—what he may be _doing_ to Feron! But wanting to save Feron doesn't mean I want to just throw you back into the fire!"

"I can handle it." Nicole could feel her chest tightening as this conversation went on, restricting her throat.

"Of course you can handle it, Nicole, you're a—a super soldier!" Liara flung out a hand in frustration as she found the right word. "But you're also a _person_, one I happen to care about very much! You threw yourself on that skycar! I never should have told you to go get that data, what was I _thinking_?"

"You were thinking about the mission."

"_Y__'__klat!_" Nicole nearly jumped—she'd never heard Liara swear before, and it was seriously taboo in _Siin_. Nicole stopped herself from saying the equivalent of 'bless you', since it was technically meant to shame the offending party. "Forget the mission, I should be thinking about you!"

Nicole didn't know what to say to that. She couldn't bear to look at Liara's face, but she knew that Liara was distressed, her features finally free from the cold control she must have learned in the past two years. Nicole had been trained to absorb the details of her peripheral vision without thinking about it. She hated that.

"Nicole—please promise me you won't run off and get yourself killed. Nothing is worth that."

She brought the skycar into the docking bay in Liara's apartment. A message running across the bottom of the windshield told Nicole that the car's automated parking procedure was being initiated; it must have been Liara's personal vehicle.

"You should get your things and come quickly back to the car. We need to get on the _Normandy_ before the police come to investigate."

"What, you think one of the foremost information brokers on Illium doesn't have the police in her pocket?" Liara asked, almost managing to sound casual. "I doubt they'll come here."

"Still. We shouldn't waste time."

Liara spared her one last look before she left the car. Nicole expected the tightness winding in her chest to start to fade as Liara left, but it didn't. As she stared at the steering column, its black leather stained with dripping rivulets of red and purple blood, she had to fight the urge to scream. Everything Liara had said had made sense. But something in Nicole's brain was tying itself in knots, making it impossible to think, driving everything out of her thoughts but the trails of blood on the steering wheel.

XXX

They didn't say anything until they made it back to the _Normandy_, standing in the airlock. Liara was holding a duffel bag in one hand, her forearms straining to carry the weight. Nicole finally managed to say something.

"Let me carry that."

"Nicole, don't be ridiculous, I'm—"

"Not the super soldier. Give me the bag, I can carry it." Nicole held out a hand.

"Okay." The duffel bag weighed barely anything in her hand, though she could detect the weight. Nicole found herself wondering if Miranda had done that—programmed her nerves to detect slight changes in weight despite being orders of magnitude stronger than a human should have been. It was unsettling, thinking about the intimacy that would have required. She tried to forget it. Then the docking bay door opened to reveal the airlock.

Unfortunately, Miranda was standing in it.

"Commander. I tried to get in contact with a Broker agent, but none would speak to me. By now they know the _Normandy_ is yours, and that—"

"When." Nicole's voice was flat, commanding. The tone was one Gabreau had given her.

"Beg pardon?"

"When did you check with the Broker agents?" Nicole hissed, through clenched teeth.

"The moment you directed me to," Miranda replied, sounding startled. Of course she did.

"That was before my … disagreement with Tela Vasir. The Broker already knew I was connected to you, knew about the _Normandy_. He's already had us black-listed."

"Well, he _is_ the Shadow Broker," Miranda muttered. "May I ask what this is about?"

"You may. When I ask you up to my quarters. In the meantime, you're going to show Liara to all the spare chambers, and she's going to pick one." Nicole held out the duffel bag for Miranda. "Carry this." To her surprise, Miranda accepted the bag without so much as a sniff of disdain, and didn't seem bothered by the weight. Instead, Miranda nodded professionally.

"Of course. Ms. T'Soni, if you'll follow me?"

Nicole watched Miranda and Liara enter the ship together, and felt a strange stab of anger. But as they turned towards the elevator, Liara looked over one shoulder and cocked an eyebrow at Miranda, and mouthed "Is she for real?" She even smiled, though Nicole was sure it was just a show for her benefit. Still, it worked, and Nicole felt some of the anxiety in her chest dripping away.

Once she was back in her quarters, she sent a message for Garrus to come up and visit her in her quarters. While she waited for him she peeled back the glove of her combat mesh and ran her knuckles under hot water in her sink, watching the blood trickle down her hands. Mechanically she picked out shards of glass and metal, watching the jagged little shapes trickle away in a stream of water and blood. She was so absorbed that she didn't realize Garrus was pinging her door until the fifth time. When she was done she held up her hand and looked at it. The cuts were already starting to scab over; all of the metal had been pushed out of her skin. That had been why it'd washed away so easily.

"Come in." She toweled off her hand and nearly put the ruined glove back on, before she thought better of it. When she left the bathroom Garrus was already standing in the doorway, bandages wrapped tightly around his mandibles. "You healing okay?"

"Yeah, I'm doing fine. How about you?" Garrus asked, gesturing towards her hand.

"Just a scratch. You going to be ready for ground time soon?"

"Chakwas says to give it a week. And she uses this very alarming tone when she does so, so I figure I should listen." Garrus shot her a grin, and then winced. "Ow. She also said that was probably going to keep happening for about a month."

"What do you think about this ship?" Nicole asked, as she walked over to the slit in the wall where her clothes were. She retrieved a fresh glove and pulled it onto her hand. She wondered if she would have any new scars on her fingers.

"Well, the food's not exactly gourmet," Garrus shrugged. "And your weapons system is outdated. Other than that, I haven't seen much of her."

"I need you to try and see more. We can't trust anyone on this ship, Garrus."

"I know."

"We can't really trust that there's no one listening right now. But I'm going to gamble that they're more scared of what will happen if I find out they're listening than they are curious about what they'll miss out on if they don't." Nicole took a breath. Somehow saying what she meant to say was worse than just knowing about it. But she couldn't keep living with it. "They tried to put a chip in my head."

"_What?! _Nico—Commander, are you serious?"

"Call me Nicole."

"I'll call you the Primarch of Earth if that'll make you happy!" Garrus blurted hysterically, his mandibles working wildly. He winced , but didn't stop talking. "What—what was it?"

"A listening device. Very crude. I had it taken out."

"Palaven's blistered hide," Garrus gasped, taking a seat at the table in Nicole's lounge. "I thought—no _wonder_ you're so pissed off. I mean—shit."

"You're not wrong. I'm very pissed off," Nicole admitted, taking the seat opposite him. "You know the other doctor, in the science lab? The one who was your primary surgeon?"

"Yeah, I thought it was weird that he wasn't the one monitoring my condition. Shit—is he a part of it?"

"No. He's a recent addition to the crew, like you. He's the one who found the chip and took it out of my head. So I trust him. I might need to hit the ground soon. With Liara. I need you to watch Dr. Solus if and when I'm gone. Make sure no one makes a move on him."

"You think they would?"

"No. But there are only three people I trust on this ship. I'm not leaving either of them up to chance." Garrus took a moment to absorb her words, then let out a light wheeze that could have been a painful chuckle.

"So who's watching me?"

"Dr. Solus. I won't need to tell him. He's used to this kind of thing."

"So I watch his back, he watches mine?" Garrus rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe I should get to know this guy."

"He's an interesting conversation partner. More interesting than me." Nicole looked at the door. "You should go. I need to talk to Miranda. No need to inflict her company on both of us."

Somewhat hesitantly, Garrus got up and walked towards the door. But before he left he shook his head.

"_Spirits_. How did they spend so much money bringing you back without realizing how stupid an idea it would be to try and control you?"

Nicole was looking at the new glove. It matched seamlessly to the seal on her upper arm, as though it were a part of her original mesh.

"Arrogance will do that."

It wasn't long that Garrus had left before Miranda was at the door, responding to Nicole's summons. Nicole beckoned her in.

"Commander, Ms. T'Soni says that she's analyzing the data you retrieved, and that she should have a location soon." If Miranda found this set of information mystifying, she didn't betray it.

"Doctor. You should call her 'Doctor.'"

"Of course, my apologies."

"You really mean that, don't you?" Nicole asked. Miranda didn't step forward from the doorway. Nicole could practically feel Miranda's mind working, evaluating. Trying to figure out what it was Nicole wanted. Did she already know? "You respect the title. The work that went into it."

"Yes, I do. May I come in?"

"Might as well. It's your ship."

"It's _your_ ship, Commander," Miranda said, though she didn't hesitate to enter Nicole's quarters. She took Garrus's seat, sliding down into it as though it were the easiest thing in the world. She laid her hands palms-down onto her lap, sitting serenely. "We merely built it."

"I don't own anything with a Cerberus logo on it. I figured you'd know that about me."

"I wasn't the one in charge of designing the ship. Or its logos," Miranda added, leaning forward without realizing it.

"You're stronger than you look," Nicole said. Miranda barely even started at the change of topic.

"I've had more than the usual genetic modification."

"Join the club," Nicole said wryly. Miranda responded with the slightest smile, almost a smirk—but for once, Nicole thought it might have been real.

"Well, whereas your modification was multi-stage and, if you'll forgive the bluntness, recklessly aggressive, mine occurred in the womb. I was designed to be the 'perfect woman.'" Miranda's nose wrinkled. "As a consequence, I couldn't have anything so unflattering as visible musculature."

"Not like me." Nicole couldn't help but feel aware of the way her jacket was tight around her arms and shoulders, unflattering. She shoved the thought away.

"No, not like you," Miranda agreed. "I understand why you hate me."

"I wouldn't call it hate. Professional distrust. To be honest I haven't thought of you as a person enough to hate you." Nicole tapped the shaved side of her head, where the scar from Mordin's surgery was. "One of the things your people did to me. Takes me a while to see people as people. Guess that's in your psych profile."

"Then ... I understand why you can't see me as a person."

"Really, that's quite lucky." Nicole brought up her omnitool and scanned through some images. When she was done she projected one onto the table. "Not seeing you as a person is helping me be more rational right now."

Projected onto the table in streams of orange light was a small chip, barely the size of a thumbnail. A perfect replica of the one Mordin had taken from her brain. She watched Miranda's reaction very carefully. She expected there to be nothing—but instead Miranda's eyebrows raised, just slightly, as though involuntarily. She could have been acting. Or not. It was impossible to tell.

"What's this?"

"You've never seen it before?"

"What, some kind of tech component? I might have seen one like it."

"This one was taken from my brain by Dr. Solus."

_This_ time, Miranda really did have no reaction, as though she had been frozen. After a very long while, she opened her mouth, and closed it again. Nicole was almost deriving a cruel pleasure from Miranda's plight, but she was starting to suspect it was actually genuine. Or that it at least could have been.

"I—I have no idea how that could have gotten there, Shepard! I—Shepard, I've seen your psych profile inside and out, there is no universe where I would be dumb enough to even _begin_ to suggest that we try and tamper with your head! I don't fancy the thought that my last sight would be the tip of your knife!"

"You'll notice I haven't killed you."

"Shepard, believe me, I—I did _not_ sanction the addition of _anything_ to your brain! In fact, when we found out your brain had only suffered minimal damage, the _only_ thing we did was use the nanites to rejuvenate your tissue, I swear to you! One of the first mission mandates I laid out was that we avoid any direct modifications to your brain—well apart from the fact that you'd kill anyone who tried, we didn't dare risk altering your brain structure!"

"Let's say I believe you didn't put it in there. That leaves the considerable question of who _did_. And who else would have access?"

"Only a few. Wilson—the man you killed at the Lazarus base. A couple other surgeons—I can track them down, have them interrogated—"

"They could have operated without your awareness?"

"I wouldn't have thought so. But I was wrong." Miranda stared at her hands, for the first time failing to meet Nicole's eyes. "Wilson would have had the best chance to access your—your body."

"And I guess we can't question him. My fault." Nicole looked at Miranda until the woman finally remembered herself and met Nicole's gaze. Her face was as composed as ever, but cold fury was somehow radiating out of her face from the tight lines at the corners of her mouth. "Though Wilson is a convenient scapegoat in a universe where you _were_ dumb enough to tamper with my head. Why should I believe you?"

Miranda started to talk, then stopped herself. She closed her eyes and took a breath, and when she opened them again there was a strange expression on her face, one Nicole hadn't seen before. It either wasn't an act, or a new part of a very elaborate act. She almost looked sorry.

"I've avoided mentioning my own genetic enhancement because your psych profile tells me that you'd hate the thought of me trying to act like there's anything in common between us. But the truth is, I wouldn't have anything put in your head because I can't help but think about how my father had me engineered to be what he thought was perfect. How I can't feel proud about my accomplishments without wondering if he programmed that pride into me. How I can't—" Miranda's composure snapped in an instant and she looked away momentarily. "I wouldn't do that to someone. Someone I spent two years trying to bring back from the dead. You can believe that I'm some sort of frigid bitch who could read through pages about how a little girl was tortured by a monster without feeling _some_ kind of empathy, or you can believe that I'm a human being. If you believe the former I suppose you'll say this is a part of an act, and you'll kill me now."

"I bet you'd put up a pretty good fight."

"Well I'd make you work for it, at least." Miranda permitted herself half a smile. Nicole's face didn't change.

"You want to prove to me that I can trust you?"

"I'm not foolish enough to think that will be easy. But I do want to prove to you that we can work together."

"Good. Then here's your first chance. Liara's looking for the Shadow Broker, and she's going to be able to find him soon. When she does, we're going. Just me, you, and her. Your only job is to make sure that nothing happens to Liara. Do that and I might be able to start to trust you."

"This may delay our mission by days—weeks. I know Dr. T'Soni is important to you, but—"

Nicole exhaled sharply. She was actually laughing, but Miranda must have interpreted it as a threat, from the way her back stiffened.

"You know, I think you might actually be telling the truth. You're right. Dr. T'Soni is extremely important to me. She's the most important person on this ship. What does your psych profile I'd do for the people I care about, again?" Miranda hesitated again before she answered.

"We—didn't have much data about that."

"Of course you wouldn't. Here's a suggestion: make sure you don't find out."

Before Miranda could see herself out, Nicole's comms flared into life. Nicole heard that old, familiar sound, a soft inhale of breath at the beginning of a comms-link that always came as Liara composed herself.

"_Nicole, I've analyzed the data. The Broker's located on a planet in the Sowilo System. Hagalaz is the most likely target._"

"I'll have Joker plot a course. You should get ready for groundside combat." Nicole hesitated. "Miranda will be coming with us. Is that okay?"

"_Of course._"

Nicole closed the comms before Liara could say anything else. She needed to be alone. With a quick jerk of her head, she indicated that Miranda should leave. Of course Miranda complied instantly, wordlessly. She was so goddamn good at knowing exactly what to do. Nicole almost hated her for that, if she couldn't immediately see how childish it was. Instead she reclined back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She sent a message through her omnitool to Joker, ordering him to plot a course. Shortly after that he indicated their travel time to Hagalaz—seventeen hours. It was a short travel time, expedited by a lucky confluence of mass relay positioning. But it was still seventeen hours. Too long to spend alone on the ship.

But she had to be alone.

Some morbid impulse led her to access the files Miranda had given her. The ones on herself. She flipped through the medical files, the records of genetic mutilation, the training exercises, the murders, the murders, every goddamn murder until she was back to the first one.

Batarian. Gunshot between eyes and to stomach. Died from gunshot between eyes. Three lines. Three sentences were the only thing that had separated her from an early grave. From the same grave as her brother. Suddenly her eyes were burning, threatening to betray her control, until she clenched her teeth and forced it to stop. The file recounting her first kill blinked softly in the air, and before she knew what she was doing she was ripping her omnitool off of her wrist, throwing it against one wall. She thrust her fists into her eyes and felt the beginning of tears behind her eyes, but she stopped them, submerged herself beneath the subjugating will of a lifetime of training, forcing herself to stop. Her breath came in short, painful heaves, but she was starting to get back under control. She opened up her eyes.

The omnitool had skidded along the floor and into the dip in the floor that separated the lounge from the rest of her quarters. In faded orange light the lines blinked against the floor, like a footprint in the sand. Batarian. Gunshot between eyes and to stomach. Died from gunshot between eyes.

"St-turn off," she stuttered, choking back the emotion in her voice. Her omnitool's voice recognition, so tightly tuned, so ready to receive perfect enunciation—because she'd made it that way—didn't understand the command. Instead it flipped to the next lines in the file.

Brother, Ryan Shepard. Dead in batarian attack. Defending patients, unsuccessfully. He was the first to die in the medical camp.

_He was the first to die._

And then it stopped working. The training they'd beat into her mind, into her body, into her soul, it finally unwound itself and there was nothing left inside her any more, nothing but a howling, screaming child, and tears were burning their way out of her eyes against her will, and her scar was burning against her skin, and the lines wouldn't go away.

Brother, Ryan Shepard. Dead in batarian attack. Defending patients, unsuccessfully. He was the first to die in the medical camp.

"Stop it! Just fucking stop it!" One of her hands was balled in a fist, and it was shaking, and she didn't know what to do with it until she realized she had driven it straight through the thin metal table in her lounge. She'd cleaved the thing in half, sharp jagged edges threatening to cut through the combat mesh on her left hand. Somehow seeing the broken table, warped and bent around the point where her fist had struck through the steel and pinched it into a tear, managed to make the storm in her head go still. She extracted her hand. It didn't even hurt; the twisted metal hadn't broken her skin. Her scar hadn't even start to split open.

As she regained control of her breathing, she surveyed the damage to the lounge. She checked the time against the clock in her head and realized that it had been three minutes. Only sixteen hours, fifty-seven minutes to go.

She opened the dossier again. Attached at the end were a number of academic articles, mostly on genetic alteration, cloning, and behavioural control. They appeared to be recent additions, though none of them were surprising to her—except one. When she read the title, her mind froze, reading and rereading the glowing line of text projected in the air until her eyes blurred, until the words became like a prayer, a curse, a chant.

_The Decoupling of the Human Genome_, by Dr. Ryan Shepard.

XXX

The walls of her new quarters were curved, matching the contours of the _Normandy's_ hull. A large, ovular window looked out into space along the wall, though it was shuttered with metal panels. After Miranda had left, she'd set up her information processor—a series of blocky supercomputing components that correlated data and checked them for trends and patterns against an impossibly vast sea of information. While it worked, she had surveyed her temporary living quarters. They were spartan, undecorated with even a bed to sleep on; thinking back to her time on the first _Normandy_, she couldn't help but smile and reflect that she'd grown too used to all her creature comforts. Becoming the most successful information broker on Illium not associated with the Shadow Broker hadn't been easy, but she couldn't remember the last time she hadn't had a soft pillow.

She glanced at the duffel bag she'd hastily packed at her apartment; she hadn't brought any pillows. Somehow, she thought wryly, that had seemed inappropriate. The only thing in her bag aside from her gear was a suit of collapsible armour, not as heavy or as durable as Alliance-standard fare, but considerably easier to assemble and move around. She'd bought it thinking of Nicole; it was manufactured by the same company that made her combat mesh. They specialized in what they called "discreet personal protection." That had almost made her laugh once, though she hadn't really been able to at the time.

Now Nicole was actually here, back on the ship, and she found she couldn't face the thought of seeing her. But she couldn't face any other thoughts, either. She knew she should have been thinking about Feron, about the possibility of saving him, about what condition he might be in after a year at the Shadow Broker's mercy. He was somewhere out there, among the stars. She should be looking for him.

But she couldn't get her thoughts to leave this ship. She couldn't forget the sight of Nicole's hand, torn and bloodstained, the sight of her thumb breaking through Tela Vasir's throat like a piece of bubble wrap. She remembered watching Nicole die, remembered the moment when the signal from her suit vitals had ceased to transmit. She remembered being evacuated by Alliance personnel, who had assured her that the universe would remember Nicole's sacrifice. Her sacrifice? For what? Pointless shakedown runs on geth sites because the Council and the Alliance were too cowardly to accept the future that Nicole had warned them about?

_She's been sacrificing since she was ten years old. _And they had turned their backs on her. Assumed that her last sacrifice was merely the last in a long series of tragedies. The only ones who had been willing to believe, the only ones who had been willing to _hope_, the only ones who had wanted Nicole back like she had, were the ones who had done everything to her. Because they wanted a return on their investment.

_And I gave her back to them. And then I left her alone._

_"_Open portside viewing window," Liara said, quietly. The shutters slid back quietly, revealing the universe to her in neat segments. She laid a hand against the glass and looked out, wondering for a moment what would happen if the glass just vanished. If she were sucked out into space, the way Nicole had been. She wouldn't die immediately, but she would suffocate before she froze. She rubbed her fingers along the glass. Such a small thing, to be the only barrier between her and death. Between her and the vast sea of nothing.

There was a chirping at her door. Surprised, she turned around.

"Who is it?"

"Your favourite ex-cop," said a familiar voice. Liara signaled for the door to open, and Garrus walked in, ducking beneath the low door. More than the first _Normandy_, this one had been built solely to accommodate humans. "Thought I'd drop by and say hello."

"Hello, Garrus." Even though the side of his face was covered in bandages, Liara still couldn't help but thinking of him as an over-enthusiastic teenager who had perhaps gotten into a schoolyard fight. But those bandages covered more than just bruises.

"Been a long time. Heard you switched professions." Garrus jerked his head in the direction of Liara's information processing gear.

"After what happened, archaeology seemed like an inefficient use of my time."

"I guess so. Bet you'd still perk up if we stumbled on some old Prothean ruin, though." Garrus went to flex one of his mandibles, then stopped himself with a wince. Half out of pity, Liara favoured him with a smile.

"Probably."

They fell quiet for a moment. Liara wondered if Garrus knew how much she knew about him; about Archangel, about his squad, about how he had been surrounded by mercenary gangs. Liara had nearly wanted to hire her own mercenaries to help spring him out, but Garrus had managed to ensure every single mercenary company on Omega wanted nothing to do with _saving_ Archangel's life. In the end, it had taken Nicole to save him. It always seemed to take her, when the impossible had to happen.

"Have you seen her?"

"Of course I have," Liara said, a little too quickly. Garrus grimaced sympathetically, though he was constrained by his wounds.

"I know. I meant, since you arrived on the ship. She needs you, Liara."

"I don't think Nicole _needs_ anyone," Liara said, as tactfully as she could. "I think what she needs right now is to be alone."

"You believe that?" Garrus snapped, surprising her. "You know her better than I do and we _both_ know what it'll mean for her to be alone right now. I know what it meant when _I_ was alone. When I was on Omega, when all those mercenaries were coming to kill me, they started blurring together. I started thinking about my father, and my sister, and—and all the people I'd never get to see again. About how I was going to die, and I was going to be alone, and soon I'd just be a bunch of splattered turian cells on an apartment wall. I was alone. And I started thinking it was hopeless. That maybe I deserved to die. It was just the worst things in my head, over and over again, repeating until the world was blurring around me and it was all I could to do fire one more shot, one more—" Garrus inhaled, and stopped himself. He shook his head and looked back at her.

"I barely felt like myself, Liara. Until I saw her climbing over that barricade. Until Nicole Shepard came to save me. I thought—maybe I wanted to believe—that I could do that for her. That I could help her see it's not just her and the ghosts in her own head. But I'm not the one she needs. You are. Even if she doesn't realize it."

For a while they just stayed there, stewing in the silence between them. Before long, her information processors sent a message to her omnitool, containing a readout of data. She glanced down at it. It seemed surprising that so much she had searched for over the past two years could be compressed down to a couple of lines: Sowilo System. Likely candidates: Hagalaz, Ansuz. She forwarded the message to Nicole. When she was done, she looked up. Garrus was still there.

"Seventeen hours. That sounds like plenty of time, to me." She must have been muttering beneath her breath.

"You're ... you're right." Liara closed her eyes and bowed her head. "You're right."

"Well, every now and again I'm bound to be. I'll see you soon, Liara." Garrus cracked a grin, and as he left, he added, almost as an afterthought, "You know, apparently I have to get to know the crazy salarian doctor while you and Nicole are off tangling with Broker agents. Any advice from our resident information broker on how I should, uh, make small talk?"

"Sorry," Liara said, managing a small smile, "I'm afraid my experience with crazy salarian doctors is limited."

"Well, it's _your_ girlfriend who put me up to it you know. You just look after her." He vanished behind the doorway before she had a chance to respond. She wished people wouldn't do that. She'd had too many truncated goodbyes.

But Garrus wasn't gone forever. And he wasn't the only one.

XXX

…_so the problem becomes the selection of individual traits which may be passed on. It turns out it is easy enough to determine how a given gene may be modified for optimal performance (Harrison & Raff, 2063), but doing so in piecemeal fashion is considerably more difficult; using some sort of graded scale introduces a series of complications (see GRAPH 46). As indicated in GRAPH 47, attempts to "partially" activate a gene sample (Experiment 1) or fully activate select portions of genetic code (Experiment 2) using the methods proposed were markedly less successful than uninhibited administration of treatment._

_A (theoretical) explanation of this argument is that our procedures identify which genes must be "turned on" or "turned off" based on pattern recognition and holistic integration. The milquetoast results yielded by partial activations of the program are likely due to a failure for these changes to take hold when they are not administered as part of the complete program._

Nicole's door chimed, and she looked up. The action somehow triggered her mental clock, and she realized she'd been reading for four hours and twenty-six minutes. She dismissed her brother's document. Somehow the fact that it was a cold, technical guide was helpful. If she was looking for some clue as to the warm person he had been, that had only presented itself in the foreward; the rest of the document could have been written by anyone. Like a ghost had written it.

"Come in." She expected Miranda again, perhaps with some new attempt to convince her to cancel the trip to Hagalaz. Or maybe Garrus. Somehow, she didn't anticipate Liara showing up in the doorway until she was there, arms folded patiently behind her back. Nicole knew she was staring, but couldn't help herself. She saw Liara's eyes flick towards the warped lounge table, then quickly away from it. Suddenly Nicole felt a hot flush of shame.

"It's been two years." Liara said, almost mechanically. Then she cleared her throat and smiled nervously, looking for the first time like the Liara Nicole had known. She stepped forward, down through the lounge and past the shattered table, until she was nearly at the bed where Nicole had been reading. She was still smiling. Still nervous. Nicole's heart hammered a steady pattern inside her chest. "I thought it might be nice to tell you what I've been doing. Fill you in. If you want."

Nicole thought about her brother's research. Reading it hadn't made her feel better—it had almost made her feel _less_. As though it had been hollow. You couldn't talk back to a ghost.

But here Liara was. In front of her. Even as the _Normandy_ hurtled towards one of the most dangerous places in the galaxy, there she was. Smiling, nervous, hands still folded behind her back. Liara always did that when she felt something was important.

Nicole realized she hadn't said anything.

"Of course—if you need some time alone, I understand," Liara said, suddenly, starting to dissolve beneath the veneer of professional calculation that had been on display since Nicole had met her at her office.

"I don't know what I need," Nicole admitted softly, the words of her brother's research still floating in her mind. The whispers of a ghost; a ghost, it turned out, who she hadn't really known. She met Liara's eyes. They were blue, and beautiful, the way she'd remembered but nearly forgotten. "But I think I'd like to listen, for a little while."


End file.
